Learning The Ways Of Misery... Poem by RIC BASTASA

when you left an hour ago
to the city
i thought i may not be able
to know what to do
in the next few hours
here in this
lonely town where leaves
keep on falling as the
wind has always been strong
and cruel

i may only be listening to the
noise of barking dogs the moment
another stranger riding on a
bicycle passes by the road fronting
this old house

but really i have figured out that
if this thing happens over and over again
and perhaps even for real and
perchance becomes a permanent state
of an inevitable departure

i said to myself i must as early this
raw and budding time know how to meet
a calamity:

i face a blank screen
choose a classical music
and i listen and then i
begin to write about anything
to preoccupy my mind and
i scroll about the lives of
people

and there i tell you
i am not alone

there is so much misery
in this world and there are
so many miserable people

i am one in a billion and that
makes us so many


sands on the shore
stars in the sky
molecules in air
drops of rain
mists along with the waterfall
letters in a book

and so finally
I am comforted

and i spontaneously
learned how to sing and dance
with no one looking...