The Place Of My Birth No Longer Recognize Me Poem by RIC BASTASA

the land where i was born
mother tells me
is a land of mud and rain
they always go together and cause
the coming of each other

once when i have already
learned to talk and walk
we visited it

there were trees then
and some canals and fields of
green, ricefields and patches
of potato gardens and corn
and cassava

the men there are thin and the
women bent and mishapen
and they always complain
that they are hopeless
with sick children

they wanted to move
to our place where father
has prospered

there were no compromises
no transfers and no promises
we left all of them
towards our own home

and then there was this war
and many were killed
we read that on the news
and heard it from relatives

and then i become a man
and in peace visited the place
of my birth
the place has changed

everything is barren and burned
and there are no children
and women
either they died and buried
on shallow grounds
or they left somewhere else
for good
those hopeless men

i remember the dead trees
and tell them my name
who my mother was

it is sad the place of my birth
no longer recognizes me