There's So Much Left To Learn

There’s SO MUCH Left to Learn! There’s so much left to learn, dreams I hope I can share that I haven’t touched yet, more new dawns still to bloom. And I’m blessed by my muse when I pen rhymed verse too, for rhyme brings life to bones I must stretch to connect. It’s been seventeen years since fate graced me to meet ‘Kim Dung’ - love of my life (a beautician by trade). Had we met at her work, had she guessed my past’s ease, would dry tender have missed sparks that prejudice doused? She had come on the arm of a quite wealthy friend for a banquet, ‘First Night - La Boheme’ (more a guest than a fan). Not a patron, I’d come with a friend as fare’s fan (less true opera buff), more art’s fluke. It was Puccini’s art that linked table for twelve, but a gift of grace moved us through shadows we cast. A false narrative tells us to hide or to dare, but the ground felt secure when I entered the room found my place by her side. Did her accent imbue me with courage to ask this, did I disrespect her to ask of her home? ‘Fait accompli’ was sweet! She was from Vietnam. So I ventured I’d stayed in Malaysia two years, thought war a disease, and taught Physics to 12th Form in Peace Corps (not soused to the eyeballs in ‘our way or die’). Why pretend that war fosters the peace? Which one’s feared more, which blessed? But connections got made there, that helped love attend. The dark ghosts both still honored would fade with rebuke from both sides as grace led us by grace to each delve toward new art yet untasted, love’s light unsurpassed. Brian Johnston 29th of December in 2021