Spontaneity In The Making As I Wait For My Flight To Hanoi. Poem by RIC BASTASA

jean and jerry went for a long drive
from new york to virginia
wanting to visit first cousins there
whom they have not seen for 20 long
years after jean's father died of
thyroid cancer somewhere in that far
flung area in Mindanao.

seven long hours jean and jerry talked
with other cousins Au and Hiromi who flew
from Tokyo to join them in this meeting
game of nostalgia and nausea.

the pictures tell of a happy life in virginia
big white houses, bluish painted porches
behind them a garder of azaleas and some
greener birch trees i suppose.

life is good, and everyone is happy as
they were taking with gusto the black forest
cake beside is the four season juices and
some oranges and apples and the grapes.


i am happy to hear them happy in their reunion.
i still wonder where is gerald, whom mauricio
once said had an entanglement with the law and
who keeps saying that actually life in virginia
is quite hard for them but then no one is really
telling.

someone says, we are better off here in the islands.
and i would say i agree, but it is more of a lifestyle
and i am not campaigning or telling that life in
this dusty place is better, or when it rains
it really rains that hard, and waters rise higher
than the bridge and so some here really dream of snow.