Born in the East
I was born in the East
where poverty
and want abide.
An abundance
of yearning is
in the East,
where the sun shines
brightly focused on impoverished ground,
as it illuminates the earth
In explicit fine detail,
exposing every floating spec of dust,
and every wandering grain of sand,
every child, every woman,
and every man.
I have journeyed
and traveled to the West
to live,
where a filtered light abides,
Where women wear
their crowns
with increasing pride,
a growing,
and cascading tribe,
unlike the downward cast
and fabric covered eyes
of the women of the East.
I have made the journey
from the East to West
In the twilight of the
gently fading light
that casts
an orange golden glow
on the outlined squares
of all the lighted
and drowned windows
of the city towers
and western temples
all cast against the darkened
blues of night.
And here
I have found my life,
my spouse,
In a merging
of East and West
and in a mingling of heart
and blood
and mind.
Yet in my heart there’s
a yearning still
for want,
And suffering,
some of it derived from the
ragings
of the beast,
But I yearn for the honesty
Of humble roots;
For the open hearts,
that want and suffering can breed.
And there’s a beauty
and a yearning,
a familiar comfort,
of a kindred sort
in the night falls of the West,
that especially is felt
when traveling
at night by roads that run by water.
It arrests the heart
and soul as well;
In a sombre moment of
serenity.
There are so
many setting suns
that are all descending
in the West
and the poignant beauty
of this sadness
and their descending
all at once ,
is so great
that it defies description.
It’s a sadness abiding
in the feast
of many tables,
an abundance
quickly fading,
from reality to fables.
And the fading
sows the seeds
for fields of hearts
to be cultivated, to be grown to open.
And these
Fields plowed and fertile
are the very reasons
that I now
have made this land
my home for hearts to open.
From “Picture Book of Poetree” by PWChaltas
PWChaltas 