What Must You Do? Poem by RIC BASTASA

oh, those little things

like the brown grasses of summer,
a flower that blooms in the middle of those rocks
the worm that crawls its way slowly to the humid part
the black bird that stays alone on a branch
the tree that keeps on shedding off its leaves
the dry wind, the post in the middle of the rice field
a banana leaf torn on its sides
a concrete fence surrounding the university

these and those that people do not mind
are mine to write about

we make out our links to all these
we make our own definitions of the self
with what we also mean to them

the black bird staring, the concrete fence of indifference.