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For my birthday this year, a friend gave me the book The Best American Travel Writing 2009
In Burma, San-Zarni Bo Tells The Future
he reads ink-palmed impressions
says good things are coming
but stay away from saffron-colored robes
outside the wind is making a liar
of the junta weatherman
and in the cardboard villages along the Irawaddy
no one is going anywhere
no one has anywhere to go
later tonight a killing wind will extract more blood
from a drained people, leeching them dry
even as their homes and shops
fill with dirty water the color of dead sparrows
children will scream for drowned mothers
frantic fathers will search for lost sons and daughters
entire families will blow away, wash away
hundreds of miles away, in a stone compound
at the end of eight lanes of concrete
a bitter old man will chuckle
as he reaches into the empty place
behind his sternum and stirs the acid
with one yellowed finger
but back in his dimly-lit room
San-Zarni Bo predicts the future
says good things are coming
don’t mind the wind, he shouts
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