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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NO EXEMPTION FOR TOURISTS, by KAREN SWENSON Poet's Biography First Line: A foreign family -- mother, father Last Line: To the bright ribbon of river. Subject(s): Indonesia; Suicide; Tourists; Dutch East Indies | |||
A foreign family - mother, father, ten-year-old daughter - stroll through the lush spill of green, chambered with voices of grasshoppers and frogs, savoring the fastidious sensation of being a unique unit in an otherwise homogeneous landscape: the tourist feeling that life has suspended its rules and the world has become a petting zoo. They pause to watch, where the path skirts the fall of paddy terraces, darting scarlet dragonflies sizzle air on gold-netted wings and figures working around two mounds below. The bank is blocked by turns in the path, green paddles of banana leaves, as voices become more distinct, chiming in and out of the river's sound. Rounding the last corner the come out at the riverbank, at the two mounds - two bodies soaking through their shrouds improvised from flowered sarongs. A woman, snail tracks of tears on her cheeks, urges them back. "Suicide. Girl, boy," she explains in English. The parents move their bodies in front of their daughter, turn her up the hill. "Disgusting," she says. They chatter the day's cheerful plans over her head - a pair of birds weaving a protective nest of words - while green rice bends down to the bright ribbon of river. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MANOKWARI, IRIAN JAYA; IN MEMORIAM, ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE by KAREN SWENSON ORANGUTAN REHAB by KAREN SWENSON STALKING LEMURS by KAREN SWENSON THE BALINESE WITCH DOCTOR by KAREN SWENSON WEDDING BED IN MANGKUTANA by KAREN SWENSON THAT KIND OF POEM' by KAREN SWENSON |
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