Cambodia Poem by Gerard Smyth

for Simon

Our second son, the wanderer
has sent a postcard home that shows
the smiling people of Cambodia,
a Buddhist temple, a garden of magnolia.

On travels with his Mappa Mundi
he has stepped into this distant place
as far away as June's long days
are far from January. But he keeps in touch,

emails, texts - our second son, our Gulliver
who sends us words to describe his trek
through the killing fields on a tourist bus.
He calls it another world.

You'd never think there was a war on once,
he says - bombs and bullets, rockets, guns,
the house of love burning,
burning under the Asian sun.