Bamboo Cutters

- Kanchanaburi, Thailand

Burning bamboo cracks and pops
like military exercises
sending echoes and smoke
up the burnt-out valley of the Kwae.

The bamboo cutters laugh
as grey clouds mass
for the storm that will not come
until the end of the dry season.

All day I have watched them
toiling their loads of cane across the river.
Now they smile
as the bamboo guns crack again.

Dusk settles like smoke along the valley.
The cutters have gone.
In the darkening still
unseen bells tinkle along the shore.

A boy and his buffaloes
wander home.