Dearest Laos

May 24th – June 8th, 2007

You provoke or perhaps more aptly coax

A love from me that is in many ways the purest

Not turbulent or extreme like India

By whom I was buffeted and jarred back and forth. 

 

There the spectrum had grown tangents;

I traversed chaotic paths without say

Pinging from sublimity to absurdity

And devotion to nihilism - and many others -

In some multi-directional state of flux.

 

(I should say, I love her too

But her grace resides in a different part)

 

Your sincerity and warmth, subtle and modest at first

Was nonetheless constant; instillations assured

You curbed uncertainty and unveiled your wholesome self.

 

And such beauty – hills falls plateaus, plains and islands

Abundance! 

Congruent in organic naturality

Firmly bonded by Mekong blood.

 

From you I take seemingly perpetual sustenance

For you let me see real clouds again

And know just what it is to be alive.