blood memories

blood splattered face,
can barely see out,
lying on my back,
grandma comes with candle water,
blessed by the monks,
splashes it on my eyebrow,
gouged and bloodied,
fell on the foot bridge,
from the dirt road to the compound,
has me drink the concoction as well,
closest thing to medicine,
within twenty-some miles,
the way its been for generations,
grams turns on a kerosene lamp,
as darkness overtakes the village,
just beyond the regional hub,
just on the cusp of the nineteenth century,
oxcarts and water buffaloes,
drawing water from the river,
lamps and candles to light our nights,
riding in the back of a truck to the city,
dirt roads disappearing behind us,
as we fly eastward and forward in time,
stand in awe on the city street,
automobiles and electrical lines,
movie theaters showing Clint Eastwood,
giant billboards above multi-story buildings,
Americans living on and around the Air Force base,
like me but still so different,
speaking in a language i didn't understand,
looking for my father around every corner,
wondering what he looked like,
couldn't imagine the life he lived over here,
we stopped and ate our sticky rice,
street vendors lined up and down,
we went back to wait for the truck/bus,
stopped and paid our respects to our neighbors,
the ones that died in a car crash,
two pairs of flip-flops lined up next to each other,
one adult and one child's pair,
blood stained and empty,
i remember staring at the bodies,
as they lay in the house next to ours,
the smell of death creeping out,
over the stairs and into the yard,
loud music blaring from speakers,
hooked up to generators from the city,
the young boy was just a little older than me,
never lived to see his village tansform,
went from agrarian to the information age,
in twenty-some years,
my family now sits and watches t.v.,
American Idol and Baywatch,
talking on their cellphones,
driving their second and third-hand cars,
eletrical wires criss-crossing the skies,
bathrooms in every home,
no more sneaking into the neighbor's garden,
scrounging for leaves and grass to wipe,
and i sit half a world away,
longing for a yesterday that is long gone,
just a memory to all of them,
i look in the mirror and look at my scar,
across my eyebrow on the right,
no stitches no tylenol just toughed it out,
and it remains on my face to remind me,
of all the yesterdays and the way we used to live.