Poseidon digs a grave for me 
in the side of beleaguered Gaia:
 
Trench wide, ocean deep, 
a hole calling 
 
from beneath his cold, stoic waves.
 
Ambitiously he makes ready, gazing 
at the teeming shores of man
 
As though there is not space enough 
upon the earth 
 
for this sort of thing.
 
The Ocean Lord does not realize 
the methods of disposal are as myriad as the erosions.
 
The promiscuous lips of Agni might ignite my husk, 
disguised as careless match or
Deliberate flame, and winds, 
 
drunk on intemperate currents, may spit my ashes
Across the lands to visit all of my ancestors.
 

Two decades since my foot last fell 
upon my native soil,
 
Often asked when will we return: 
 
Always, it is this return we're expected
to undertake. 
 
Even with feet pierced at birth,
Oedipus could not resist the call 
to a home he never recognized.
 
The son is tied to fate, to soil, to heart, to grave.
 
What home is this, that people want? 
To be born where the final comfort, too, is served.
 
In exasperation, hearts gasp for the complexity of ants.
Surely ants don't ask such riddles of themselves, 
 
even those night travelers upon the beach
swept away by Poseidon's mischief, 
 
trying to return beneath the hill of their own making.


© 2006 by Bryan Thao Worra. All rights reserved.