Me And Grandpa Together? Poem by RIC BASTASA

if grandpa were still alive
he could have scolded me to no end
why at this hour
(it is 11: 30 in the morning)
i have not yet done anything for my life

perhaps like chopping wood or pasturing the carabao
or bringing them in their mud hole and keeping them cool
under shady mango trees

or perhaps i could have been in the farm cutting those weeds
feeding the chickens,
and the pigs, and milking cows
and cleaning the pigsty

or climbing coconut trees and gathering all those nuts
and processing them to copra

all these farm dreams of his for me

he never knew what poetry is.

and if he soon discovers that i am into this craft
i know he will call me again some of my favorite names:

lazy-bone
useless ogre
animal
demon
a mouth to feed
another problem of society
rebel
fool
good-for-nothing
infidel
enemy of the church
devil
etcetera

but i might be wrong, grandpa loves me and his only wish is that
i must know how to make our farm the best in the village

the farm that produces the fattest cow
the heaviest pig,
the biggest coconut
the longest corn

i'm hardheaded, very hardheaded

if granpa were alive, i could have set a table for two,
for us, one glass of wine,
under the moon, under the garden
soft winds blowing our hair
in an atmosphere of camaraderie
nothing about sons and fathers or grandpas and grandsons

we'll talk perhaps about women, and poetry and

well, the last but not the least of course, our faith still in God.