Sabaydii,

 

Here is the continuation of a series ‘Coming home’ entitled ‘A line of broken shoes’

 

Hakphaang,

 

 

Read someone’s haiku

Overwhelmed by the message

I sat motionless

By the roadside

 

Summer dawn

A broken line of shoes

At the temple steps

 

Behind me

Stood HoTai Wat Sisaket[1]

The emblem of Lao defiance

 

 

Can’t help to wonder

How many passing by this temple

Still take to heart

They are but a long line of Lao warriors

With their tasks still unfinished?

 

Proud we are to be Lao

But what did we do?

 

Just passing by

To have our faces

Reflected back

From the yellowish wall?

 

Did I see?

Did we see?

How many lives got buried here?

Their faces were contorted with pain

I could only imagine

 

What did I do then?

Throwing myself

Into oblivion?

 

What a joke it is

One of the best Lao minds

Drowning himself

Like an idiot

 

If this is a joke

It must be the cruelest one indeed

 

Sad as it may be

We are but a broken line of shoes

Time forgot

History condemns

 

When will we ever be back?

I don’t know

 

Summer dawn

The little shoes we still have

Are but a sad accusation of ourselves

Of what we have become

Of what we could have been

 

9.24.03