Those Happy Times Poem by RIC BASTASA

i agree with you Benny
most of the happy moments we have are those
outside the house
when the big heads and the righteous old ones are not looking
they were our prison guards
and they were treating us
like convicts of the crimes we did not commit
but we maintained the silence
because of the respect
for old age not really wisdom

i agree the rivers and the seas know us better
than there mouths
their beating hands
their gritting teeth cursing us the day we were born
poor like they way they lived and survived their own wars
their own fates
there was not attempt at all by them to learn
to reconstruct old broken selves
to heal old worn hearts
to free the mind from those that fettered them
their parents of course
our grandparents as we call them
those insensitive looks
those shoulders as broad as their indifference

that was the farthest place we lived once
we live with
i am sure of myself
i am liberated
i have freed my minds from the shackles of poverty
and prejudices

i am sure
indeed i am sure
i cannot live there anymore
and coming back
to me would be murder
as mortal as death
as crazy as suicide

well we can send them letters
or emails
we can send them chain letters
and pictures of saints
or the Pope or
Mother Teresa
but i guess with their senile minds
and cracked bones

everything is now too late
it is dark
and remember
we were children once and they never let us play

under the full moon
when the stars glitter when we first learn
the magic
of imagination
when the air was fresh
when romance first showed
under the bush
when it rains and then we do not run
back for shelter
when we dance and laugh
and chase
dreams and ambitions
images and colors
rainbows and bridges
fairies and kingdoms...