(shadorma sequence)
Agreement
was not forthcoming.
‘You can’t live
in Bali.
Without work, without money,
they won’t let you stay.’
‘I can’t lie
on the beach all day,’
said Himself.
‘I’d get bored.
The good life’s Australia.
But we will visit.’
Home again,
no-one understood.
‘The children!!!’
‘In Bali,’
I said, ‘Children are happy,
and educated.’
‘You tourists
will change what you love,’
said my Dad.
‘No,’ I said,
‘The culture has stayed the same
for many centuries now.’
Six more years
and dirt roads were paved;
at Kuta,
bright gardens
were replaced by crowded shops;
there were drug dealers.
More and more
I’m forced to agree:
I can’t go
back again.
Old Bali, if not quite gone,
is too much altered.
November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2010: 8
Prompt: Agreement
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