The Previous Masters..... Poem by RIC BASTASA

for quite long
i did not visit Tabon,
until the disease, hunger,
and chaos came.

we brought what we have
and what we can give: rice, sardines,
noodles and
compassion.

all the thin people came
with their dirty children and
foul fowls,

they tell us the tales of
dead chickens, and bloated pigs,
of polluted rivers, and
extinct mountains, all their
broken dreams and
wasted years,
their distrust for government
and fears of the rebels,
they're sandwiched between these
two cruel forces,

they took what we had given,
and looked at us with suspicion,
we were once with them
when we were young,
when rivers were clean where
we bathed with them,
where we rode with horses,
and got honey from those bees,

their eyes speak,
we are too late, they are dying,
and they do not know
our names anymore.