Hanoi

The clouds in Hanoi didn't just fill the sky,
they dragged their water laden bellies across the countryside,
(across landscapes that only my eyes will ever walk across),
so that the rice paddie and the cloud became a grey-green smudge
of afternoon reflection.
Square pools of light advertising the recent memories of hot sun,
and clear skies.
Water fell up from the puddles of our motion,
and ran down the windows of our eyes,
staining us all the same wet colour in the fading light.
And when darkness had again consumed us,
we carried on like beasts of burden,
though our traffic be a burden to all beast.
And in the morning,
as her skirt showed the light of the same distant heart-star,
I supped your broth-
some pure inhalation of thoughtful food
in a bowl of your simplicity.
And though i sweated the chalk of a drunken dream on the dawn,
you kissed my weary feet with a smile,
and i crossed my fingers for an hour,
until the flies blessed our long and final
morning of human demise.
And this was pure,
and this was true,
and only hearts and eyes shall know of this-
and only by chance
the fool.


Hanoi City, Vietnam
Benjamin W Wild © 2008