Insects of South-Central Thailand

(dedicated to the Oregon poet Charles Goodrich)

The dragonflies are colorful,
the butterflies even more so
their wings like Darwinian flags
or Paul Gauguin paintings-
they can be seen
around Phetchaburi Rajabhat University-
sometimes hovering
toward the tops of 30 foot palm trees

There are mosquitoes
but very little malaria-
(and they're not so bad
kept in check
by diverse ceiling-walking geckos)

At the beginning deluge
of a flood,
I once killed a huge tarantula
wearing sandals
(there were little kids at hand
you understand.)
This seemed good to me
as I'd had doubts about my bravery

Another time,
hiking with a little boy named Tot
in the dry mountain jungle of Ganga Jan
we came across many large web spiders
including one whose body
was almost the size of a hand,
whose web spanned our trail;
Tot destroyed this with my bamboo staff
but the spider got on it
and we had to abandon it

That night by the lake
I got drunk on strong Thai beer
and retired early from the party-
a choir of frogs sang
and I accompanied them
on a wooden frog instrument
I'd "charitably" bought from
a hill-tribe girl with a small baby
in the street market of Chiang Mai

The next day I drank more
with a young Thai couple-
they were pleasant-
the man was an army cadet
who played the acoustic guitar,
very well,
and sang Thai folk songs
including one with only one word:
Tsunami

There were also shiny, flying,
many colored beetles
that made my letters home-
but their image and details
are washed from my memory

Yes, that's it:
Tsunami