The Smile of a Country Couple 

Inured to a way of life, in their 
mother’s wombs, in the last stage of 
that brutal colonial age; then, suffering 

the war with all body and soul to witness, 
at not yet ten, so many deaths under the bombing,

bombing, and after the war another war 

for survival with nothing to eat… just filling 
stomachs with roots of grass and skins of trees; 
then, meeting at less than twenty, giving birth 

to two boys and three girls; feeding them, 
shepherding them all through college, helping 
them find jobs and spouses; and when at times 

they visit with their own kids and say, 
“Let’s eat out and buy a dress.” still suggesting, 
“Why not cook?” and “I can still wear this one.” 

and at last the time comes when their bodies 
listen to them only grudgingly, complaining, 
“Donkeys become old, and not human bodies?” 

Now, the couple smile at each other. 
“We’ve succeeded, anyway; we survived! 
and without us our next generation 
would not be racing confidently into the future.”