I Do Not Live In A World Of Flowers & Clouds And Mountains & Rivers & Brooks Poem by RIC BASTASA

I do not live in a world of flowers
I do not live in the world of blue clouds and green mountains and ricefields
I do not live in running rivers and stretching seas and clear brooks

Though I write about them
Though I miss the scent exuded by them in their kindness
Though I like the bees and butterflies that busy in their
Multicolored world with some rainbows and coolness
Of rain showers and warmth of sunshine so like
Paradise, so like the Eden of our ancient dreams,

But I do not live in the world of flowers
I cannot leave in the world of flowers

My land is this desert scorched by the noonday sun
My sea is this sand stretching from shore to shore
My outlook, my view is this misleading mirage
My clouds are these unresolved doubts and fears
And my air is this silence that only the dead can surmise.