A Nightmare.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

THEY climb the mountain
taking the steep passage
five steps at a time
rest, lest you die.
They visit an old tenant
with two wives and eleven
kids much needed to till
the farm, and maintain the
terraces of wild rice.
When they reach there,
the exchange greetings
and smiles and they share
what food they brought,
and the natives killed
a wild boar, and a boa
and rice wine as a delicacy
drink for those who came
from the cruel city infected
with coronavirus and still
spreading like an ill wind.
Now is the time to go to the
mountains to meet old tenants
and their grandchildren who
roam the forest and kill
inorder to survive.
After the food and the wine
and when the wind blows strong
and when the night comes and
they all sleep, another kind
of change not even in their
wildest dreams, their nightmare,
shall arrive to claim once and
for all, what they thought was
theirs, but not in truth
anymore. The natives now
kill in order to survive and
they water what is theirs
from the visitors' blood.