New Poetry by Betty Johnston

Gleanings

Mayhem in Hanoi’s old streets

in Vientiane

a confusion of voices

next door.

Wall hangings in the market

all look the same

as do the infinity of Buddhas

in the mountain cave.

There must be a way

to cross streets in Hanoi

the man with baskets on a pole

threads calmly past families on motor bikes.

At the markets they tell me, I see that

these hangings are fine silk, these

less so, these

cotton embroidered with silk.

Some Buddhas it seems bring rain.

Next door in Vientiane people

laugh

and through my bedroom window in the heat of the evening

I hear, I

hear

sa bai dee, hello.

- Betty Johnston 2012

Betty Johnston is a former mathematics educator, who lives in Sydney and writes poetry and short stories. She has several stories published, one in Room to Move, an Australian anthology of women’s short stories, and poems published in a number of collections – Illumina 2007, Minute to Midnight - and online.