POEM
I dream of leaving this blighted land.
Here, abundant waters rise up to the heavens
But no rainfall returns to nourish the earth.
Jungles give way to burnt-out mountains
Trees felled and fettered as logs en route to foreign homes.
Rare flora and fauna pilfered
Precious ore, disemboweled from cavernous depths.
Here, men and women toil and languish in a torpid heat
No gentling breeze arrives to calm their fevered souls.
Typhoons and cyclones, they come with no warning,
Heavy with vicious rains.
Thunder and lightning, swirl and lash, rip away roofs
Shaking the makeshift shanties built along the riverways.
I dream of reaching other shores.
Another yet-to-be-born continent
There, where the sun glistens on the tops of tall trees.
Where the rain drops and shines, stars caught on swaying leaves
To dazzle our eyes and glow luminous in our hearts.
Where at times, volcanoes erupt, sending out ash and lava
Signs from the gods that the earth is alive in its very core.
In the silent sacred spaces of my mind–
There is where I can create new continents.
Peopled by a new kind of human
Awakened by the gods they had banished and forgotten.
Together, rise from a long sleep, as if from a dream.
Together, a new age can begin.
