It begins with me and steps through a holiday

they took in Spain some years ago when

they still bothered to use gum to fill in the cracks.

The lady of the house, her brother had once been married

to Aung San Su Kyi.

That feels like 3 rather than 6.

 

Because it became one of my mother’s obsessions,

the support and discussion of Aung San,

at the time, under house arrest,

I heard the story so many times

I began to be able to tell it for myself.

I grew tall each time I told the story

noting the link I now had with the

Great woman.

 

Then she was freed.

 

It continues where I lose my hope for an enlightened future

In a modern country called Myanmar

It might as well have still been Burma

for the lies she began to tell and represent.

 

If there is three between me and she,

then there is one

between me and he who survived the

On-going genocide of the Rohinga.

 

I taught him while I was being as best an activist

I could muster in middle age and not lose my passport

Inside a camp for asylum seekers.

 

It continues where I witness the colours of truth that

make up the irises of all the survivors

who shared breath, the same eyes

and who would watch with me

on the news, this once venerated martyr

deny the savage pain of their existence.

 

My mother sits now silent on the topic

Of Aung San Suu Kyi, remembering instead the

wife of the couple, whose brother had once been married

and how this wife carried with her

a sense of a higher class, a classical education and

in the hot days and cool nights,

the life of a child who could never grow old.

 

I too would rather think of a life unchanged,

educated and yet youthful enough to defy

the expectations of those who need a leader.

Instead, that other story, has found its way

into my personal saga..

The loss of values, the denial of truth

and changes to the apparent worth of life.