Bacolod 2012 Poem by RIC BASTASA

it is not planned
but just the same i went there

i've been there many times
bathed in its hot spring
felt the coldness of its trees
and scaled the vastness of its
fullness

i stood on top of a hill
felt the sun
ached my eyes for its mountains

wrote about its beauty
nothing extraordinary

in a final note it is not about its name
or history
not even about a place
or anyone

not about myself, it is indescribable
it cannot be said

it cannot be thought for long
because once you settle upon it
longer than you wish

it too is gone away
and when you step upon the stairs of another plane

you forget and try to remember another place
no, not another person

it is this travel of non-attachment at all
the bed that you sleep last night
is no longer a bed

the table cloth that you stained with the sap of
the luscious ripe mango fruit is no longer a cloth

you are on top of the world
on top of the white clouds that block all view

from the earth from all memories
and you keep saying now and writing each piece

piercing you and you do not mean anything
it is just the passing and the going and the non stopping


out of your mind out of this world
out of what dissipates like light in darkness

it is cold you cover your face with the blanket of
the plane
and then you cease

that is the story that you have written
it is intended for no one


now, not even for this earth
or the imagined heavens