Bản Giốc
You are sitting very near the impossible thunder of the waterfall,
You are sitting very near the impossible thunder of the waterfall,
And there is no relief from the sound.
Nature is peaceful
And wild,
And the water keeps coming and coming.
It is lace with weight,
Immeasurable watery weight,
That smells like the breath of the rounded rocks it pounds
on
And looks like a million brides plummeting,
Beautiful and violent and over and over.
There is no relief from the sound.
A thunder like this should drive you away,
But it draws you
And a thousand other people.
You wonder what it was like
Before they turned on the waterworks
And the tourists came, cheerful and chatty,
Like flocks of sodden birds,
Red and orange and turquoise and wet,
Getting impossibly close to the show
On gritty, slippery feet, legs sunk in green water up to the
knees,
Or in a timed parade of funny little boats,
Mini maids in the mist.
You imagine this place empty. . .
Before the ponies showed up, ringed round the neck with
bells and flowers
And frayed ropes held by waiting photographers.
Before you could get four bars,
Plenty to post that selfie
With the falls and the clouds and the crowds in the
background.
Before the tents popped up selling tea
With the leaves floating in it
Poured in glasses quickly rinsed between customers
Who sit on those plastic chairs
That force your knees very close to your chin.
Before the souvenir market bloomed,
A segmented tunnel closely peopled
With beautiful dark heads, kind eyes, open smiles,
And the pulse of wrists expertly flicking
advertisements-turned-fans
To stir the stillness.
Before there were stalls of little needlework dresses hung
thick like curtains,
And tables of bracelets of beads and silver earrings already
tarnished,
And jade Buddhas, big for your massive altar
Or pocket-sized for your souvenir shelf in Ohio,
And plastic Mickey Mice that don’t look quite right about
the eyes,
And red t-shirts with yellow stars hung side by side
To make a faded garland just low enough
To brush your mist-dampened head with that certain kind of
humid dust,
And warm Coca-Colas,
And rows of fruits you’ve eaten but don’t know the name of
in either language.
Before the air held the smells of hair and heat
And salt from bodies and frying food
On the other side of the torn blue tarp backdrop.
It is its own kind of heaven.
You love the noise of voices and colors
And the misty pound of the falling water.
It draws you
And a thousand other people.
Still, sitting here, you dream of before all this.
You dream you discover this place when it was only white
tumbling over stone
Under a rare blue sky with no one else around.
You find it quiet, undisturbed.
But, of course, it was never quiet.
The tumbling brides have always been here
Hurling themselves over the top,
Drop after drop after millions of drops.
None is the same as the one falling before it,
Yet somehow it is always exactly the same.
And there was never a time without sound.
To have been here before the constant roar
You would have to be God.
Your dear brother says as much to you
As you sit side by side on a wet stone bench,
Misted and moved by the pounding sound.
The two of you sit,
One young and brown and talkative
And the other older and pale and shy,
Having the same thoughts about eternity.
‒erinrmsocha 7-13-2020
