Beyond Words Poem by RIC BASTASA

Got a party today in the house
and my sister brought her granddaughter named Sissy
who likes to play with our puppy named Ifur
and she chased him with a stick
and she was laughing as though there is no other
laughter left in this world for tomorrow

the old men of the house look at her with joy
without saying a word
they were busy with their smoking pipes
as they were seated on their hard molave
rocking chairs

i look at the old men of the house blowing smoke into the air and i imagine that they are all traveling back in time when they were once like her

but time of course says, you've had it and there is nothing more and they all stopped
and began talking to themselves remembering the war and how they served as
veterans, how he japs reached Dipolog and how some gold treasures had been buried in Diwan and Manawan.

They changed sighs for awes. Sifted sorrows for joys and excitement. Exchanged boredom with action. They know how to forget and then please themselves.
I admire them. They are survivors of the war and the loneliness of aging and
the ennui that peace sometimes provide on that silver platter, on that bountiful table where food are sometimes thrown as waste.

and so i shifted my paradigm too. I transferred my focus outward. Away from the selfish mode of awkwardness. That greed of my own face is consuming my identity.

i look at the window, extended my view to the far away sea
beyond the reach of words.