By Dr Abe V Rotor
Through the window of an airplane,
I see a shroud of smoke turn into rain;
This is Vietnam now.
Its pains may linger, its wound a scar,
Blessed are its plains, golden in the sun.
Blessed are its people, victims yet victors
Of a David and Goliath war.
Through the window of the mind,
Through the window of a Western eye;
The world was blind for long, but not now.
As the one-eyed Nelson defied order
Cupping the wrong eye.
Through Milton’s window when lost
The sight, clearer is the view, deeper,
Deeper is the sense of seeing,
And the sense of being.
Through the window of a posh hotel
Over tree tops gracing the view,
Swaying and singing in the breeze,
While the city is buried in mist.
Wait, wait for time with ease.
For time knows all, cures all, forgets all,
Yet indelible is the lesson of mankind
That lust never last, it ends in fatal fall.
And pain endured is glory’s gain.
Through the window of ones soul,
Has spirituality lost its meaning?
Ask the Vietnamese toiling the fields
With a grave by his side.
Sans cross, sans tombstone,
Only a whisper of a name.
It is an old window I am seeing through,
My own, through a politics of disorder,
Greed and indifference, its spawn.
How can I raise a chin to greet you,
After you have mended your own?
I must have slept too long in comfort
And ease in plenty and play, in freedom,
Believing in a god I call Bathala,
Existential to my needs and caprice;
While you struggled for sanity
With a god by your side fighting,
And brought Olympus down.
I see you fighting again,
Opening your doors to conquer the world
With homegrown rice, knowledge and valor,
To win another war, another honor.
x x x
NOTE: Written in HoChiMingh City (Saigon),
as a visiting professor at Ho ChiMingh University of Technology, 2006
1 comment:
"With homegrown rice, knowledge and valor,
To win another war, another honor."
I believe that the ironic thing here is that they have been improving and developing far better than our country especially in terms of growing rice or agricultural lands. They are now one of the major importers of rice in our country, to think that our IRRI and other centers where the ones who taught them in the first place.
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