Cambodia
Birds chirping, you know the routine.
A perfect sunny day. Finally, after the cloudy, muggy, near rain.
Wait! UV radiation warning to sun exposure for three days. Stay in the shade.
My mind is clicking.
I’m writing down quickly.
Let me see one hundred words of untidy verse.
Read it… erase it. Undelete half.
You want to read what I wrote? August 21st
Listen up: I ate four of those homemade coconut popsicles they sell on the street, while I plotted my theme.
Not part of the verse, just setting the scene
The Verse:
You can throw away evolution for humans.
Look at a picture from a hundred years ago.
Read a story from a thousand years ago.
We have changed rapidly.
A dog is the same in a film shot a hundred years ago.
A frog is the same in a story written a thousand years ago.
All is almost the same, except us, the human, we have changed most.
A time ago
An intelligent alien ingredient must have been captured from another world and ingrained in us, the human, to advance first.
Or maybe not.
I stop writing the verse.
People ask me what’s it like in Cambodia
One person asked me if there is a lot of mud.
Some ask the past.
Many ask if Cambodia is beautiful.
I don’t know.
I know, but I don’t know. I can’t explain, do you have all day to listen… and days, and days after that?
Why Hindu why Buddha why Natural Spirits and ghosts?
I don’t know.
Esoteric.
In Cambodia you float on a plane. Some kind of humble romantic. Some kind of risk everything. Some kind of … you can’t describe.
You are exposed comfortable… Down-to-Earth.
Khmer Elder’s say – No need to go somewhere, everything is provided for you here.
The deeper you stay in Cambodia the worse you understand it.
Don’t fight it.
Naïve wide eyed in love is best, easy on the mind. Smiling at the chaotic astonishing surprise.
It’s not the boisterous orchestra of tropical forest. Not dogs chasing frogs.
It is the missing piece of a puzzle, you can’t find, and can’t leave behind.
So… you try to fix it.
A Prevalent Seasonal Wind.
Leave it alone.
Win win.
By Les Cook
Kep, Cambodia
British Columbia, Canada