Degrees of Separation
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.
