HEINMIN HTUN

Bliss

 

It is not that you cannot forget the past. You just do not forget the past you don’t want to.

It is not the moments that you remember. It is people or a person that you recollect.

 

Time continues to shrink. The present becomes the bygone.

Still, you cannot leave it behind. Ensconced in your chair, you sip it every day.

 

Like energy-boosting beverages, the past tastes sweet, sour and, most important, pleasing.

By and by, you become addicted to it the way you become addicted to caffeinated liquid.

 

Memories, like the Red Bull and M-150, keep your eyes, brain and mind awake at night, bothering your sleep. Don’t you notice that?

 

Memories, like the Red Bull and M-150, tire out your heart. Will you pretend that they don’t?

 

Do not blurt it out: “This is because I have been given a heart that easily gets burdened by the weight of this world which is the past.”

 

Heart is something that is meant to touch delicacies like a mellow dawn dribbling out of clear skies, and tenderness like kindness, and love like pellucid dewdrops which quench its thirst.

 

Heart is not a place to take in the cold stranger called the past who enters with the hidden intention of spoiling its peace pristine.

 

 

“There’s a word tomorrow writ bright”

 

There’s a word tomorrow writ bright

in the morn that wakes up fresh out of a purple horizon;

her saffron smile spreading across silent skies;

in stray flappers plying boisterous and blithe

when the soft blue has brimmed the void;

in flickering leaves, blowing breeze

across the lush pastures beyond the hills

streams humming sylvan tunes

as they through vales and dales

softly make their way

into the rippling brine;

in the womb of a would-be mother,

the nimble fingers that practise exquisite curves

in the hall resonant with xylophone strikes,

the little hands that hold books and pencils;

between young lovers huddling in a tight hug

under an Autumn fall in eventide,

and on the moon-bright face of an old mother

welcoming the safe home-coming of her wearied son.

There’s a little home for tomorrow being made

deep within their hearts; a lamp swinging in their souls.

Thus, retreat away from this world, O war, hauling your coffins back

and taking back your vow to toll the knell,

for there’s a word tomorrow writ bright

in these heavenly bells chiming in beauteous light.