P O E T RY
by DAVID BRISTOL
REUNION
CAMBODIA 1989
In 1989 I went to Cambodia as a veterinarian with the
American Friends Service Committee to work on an animal
health project. Day and night I crammed the Khmer
Language into my brain. It wasn’t until I began working
with a Khmer Agriculture cadre in the provinces that the
language began to stick. One of the first phrases that I
learned, one that I cannot forget, one which I can still hear
spoken, though not in my direction, meant clearly for me,
was “nak mearn,” which means “a rich person,” literally, “a
person who has.” On my first foray into the provinces for a
four day training session on disease prevention in cattle and
From different parts
Of northern Mexico,
And rendezvousing over the crags
Of their ancestral eyrie,
The bonded pair of Peregrine Falcons
Sweep the canyon of their fledging—
Lance back into February light—
Race the rim—
Soar higher and higher
Until the male, smaller, disappears
And reappears joining
water buffalo we were housed in a blown-out villa. Up a His mate’s wide circles—
cots with mosquito nets had been set up. Before going to the Not the stoop of a three pound missile at
banner-less stairs in a large room, the ceiling still intact, 6-8
soup stand for dinner, I opened my suitcase and retrieved a
clean shirt from beneath a pair of pants. My colleague stared
into the bag of clothes, caught herself and looked out a jagged
rent, a once-window before the war, to something far more
distant than I could see. “Nak mearn nas, David,” she said.
(“You are a very rich man, David.”) I had beyond the
necessities; I was rich. She loved to teach, and she loved to
give me a hard time and never once let me forget that I was a
“nak mearn nas.”
They spiral, roll and dive—
Two hundred miles per hour stunning
And talon-carving its inflight prey
But playful
like courtship—
A faint-wind “whir-r-r”—
From the ledge of their tryst
Chirps, guttural and resonant,
The female enters the canyon first—
Ascend the walls
The male drops
“WE WHO HAVE”
What if “we who have” spend our heaven
Destroying our home—
Our earth home—
Breaking his flight into a soft hover—
Stroking his wings
He curls in his talons
Lest an awkward grip
Pierce his love
our only home?
Cenizo
Winter 2020
23