TIGAH!

Tigah! Tigah! Tigah!
You lit the lights of La Bah
Tigah! Tigah! Tigah!
You lit the lights of La Bah
beyond razor wire
      and hate
for a misplaced teenaged boy
caught up in winds of fate.
You were my Oriental Dondi,
of no more years than ten;
you were my pimp,
      my guide,
my salvation
      back then.

Tigah! Tigah! Tigah!
I gave you nothing
but what I stole
      for a child
with one eye blind
      to ignorance
      of governments
who cared not we were kin.
You saw more with one eye
      of what was
      or could have been
than I could see
      back then.

Tell me, Tigah, tell me!
Did you live to be a man
and do you still remember
me? Slip a line
into the sea or float
a note into your dreams.
Lights of La Bah float
in waves of kelp
still crashing in fire
burning just beyond
razor wire and mines
      lain deep
within my mind.

Tigah, I grow weary.
Trees stand black, naked,
      my soul froze
years ago as I grow old
      in questions.
      If I met you now
would you still call me friend?
Thirty years have died
      since fires last fell
      from their eyes,
dimming lamps now
      float in sighs
of your South China Sea.

Tell me, Tigah!
Tell me that you lived
to grow, somehow
survived that insanity;
that you have a child
of your own who sees,
      who has no need
to weep. Tell me, Tigah,
      tell me fires ceased
burning trees and shrouds
      no longer fall
from azure Asian skies.

Tell me, Tigah, tell me,
      if only in a dream
            tonight;
so I might finally see.


      Dewey173