(ants in this world) a long goodbye 9

I can count now on one hand
The number of days left on this little island
Of sweets. Days the colour of turmeric.
(It rains just now, wet monsoon has come)

This is a place of hope, no matter
What its people say. More than half its year
The bamboo chimes hanging on my front door
Sounds of water. The shore half hour away.

When the breeze blows on your beloved's hair
And when you see grown men and women
Come out at downpour, play with their children,
You will know why 

Tired white men find their way here
To rest at last from the world at large.
But I leave. By the cosmos' grace, I leave.
(An ant's work what we do. So little
         
To add to so much more.)
And two days before I leave, I shall ferry
Visit a spider woman in these islands, 
Who wrote poetry of memory, being, becoming

It shall be a moment in her herbs garden
Where there will be no promise
Only a doing by understanding
This so much work, this so much work

More than an entire ant's life can do. 

(ants in this world) a long goodbye 9

I can count now on one hand
The number of days left on this little island
Of sweets. Days the colour of turmeric.
(It rains just now, wet monsoon has come)

This is a place of hope, no matter
What its people say. More than half its year
The bamboo chimes hanging on my front door
Sounds of water. The shore half hour away.

When the breeze blows on your beloved's hair
And when you see grown men and women
Come out at downpour, play with their children,
You will know why 

Tired white men find their way here
To rest at last from the world at large.
But I leave. With the cosmos' grace, I leave.
(An ant's work what we do. So little
         
To add to so much more.)
And two days before I leave, I shall ferry
Visit a spider woman in these islands, 
Who wrote poetry of memory, being, becoming

It shall be a moment in her herbs garden
Where there will be no promise
Only a doing by understanding
This so much work, this so much work

More than an entire ant's life can do. 

a very long wait

I think it is not fear of death itself as much as
Fear of dying; death is a given, the psyche
Attuned to it since time beyond memory: all 

Archetypes of travel (companions, fellow solo
sojourners, boats, terminals, stop-overs...) 
Everyday, departures are what have come to be 

known like the pace of one's own breathing--
But who can tell of true arrivals?
Everyone has ideas, some more convincing

Than others; what may be more fearful is 
Living: that very long wait, so long 
We become desperate lovers of life itself.














  

some form of paradise

there are photos and memories and dreams
to keep close in pocket, in mind, in sleep
when one finally holds oneself 
grown and able, still
with fears no more
and no less than
a child's

photo by S. Kho Nervez

Never enough time

Never enough time to be a mother
Never enough time to be a father
Never enough time for a child
Who grows out of itself by tomorrow

The child will be gone
Replaced by a woman
Replaced by a man
Replaced by a stranger 
Come tomorrow

Never enough time to be wife
Never enough to be husband
To be lover 
To be child
To be constant
Come tomorrow

Come tomorrow
Come stranger

Who does not fear tomorrow?

on mothers on Mothers' Day

Because I will never be a mother, 
I can never bear
the true weight of the world. 

in keeping with silence

In keeping with silence, the idea of
another city is no longer the same.
There is an absence that was once
not there, a kind of empty in the air.
No else knows of this, even though
surely there are those who feel
a certain trace on their skin. A damp
weight of memory that memory has
already forgotten the name.  Some-

times, when enough of us has gather
into a circle of remembering, we can
string together the beads of stories
recollected from dampness in the air.
Re-creating the city from another time.
From the days when we were young
once immortal in love.

east of the sun, west of the moon

Where will you go, love
when the late winds start to blow
dry leaves catch on your hair

Will you be facing the moon?

It is blue black 
the night of your thoughts
and buried deep in your chest

A flickering glow

The lovers have long disappeared
a trail of winding pebbles
where will you go, my love

Will you be facing the moon?

encountering a deer

have you ever placed your hand on a breathing body of a deer on an otherwise perfect path, broken only by the sight of its beautiful body that should have been running away from you, but there instead, lying warm and heavily breathing its lasts?  it is a beautiful creature, the deer, a gentle untamed-ness reminiscent of cool breeze on a night when there are no stars and a version of your self holds the hand of someone dear--no, not a lover yet--while the both of you find your way in the fallen woods through the forbidden part of camp. a brook can be heard from somewhere and a new moon promising.  the deer has eyes like pools that when you closely look you can only closely look at yourself.  what drives men to cut their heads and adorn walls with their decapitated gentleness?  how the deer's antlers remind you of roses' thorns trying to protect itself, in good faith.  when the heartbeat under your palm slows down into a gradual stop, the woods would feel darker.  there would be no birds.  and sometimes no matter the brook, the new moon, the perfect path, the someone dear close to you, the world becomes a colder, less gentle place on your way back to camp.

geminid meteor shower

when was the last time you really took time to look at stars?  look up and stare at the night sky and wonder about those lights.  so many light years away.  a literal seeing of the past in the form of a speck of light.  when i was in third grade, every night i would lay on my back and watch the clear night sky for hours, figure out constellations, memorize star-speck positions, wondering about Big Bang, black holes and the actual size of the universe; all the while hoping to discover a new star the scientists must have missed.  i made charts and diagrams, drawing positions of constellations as seen from an angle, made notes on how they "move" by the hour.  a kid dreaming.                                      why did i stop? when it dawned that nobody i knew knew how to be an astronaut.  

when was the last time you really took time to look at stars?  

this friday night (december 13-14), many of the stars will fall.  the geminid meteor shower.

the things we do not tell

the office these days has a kind of absence.  the indefatigable secretary, Gloria, has not been around for days.  almost unheard of, but yesterday.  someone said she is undergoing some heart tests, but is not confined in a hospital.  she has been uncomplaining all these time, which made me ask just how much have i been missing.

some things chosen not to be told.

one afternoon Lilia asked me to read a poem about a lake, a grandfather and a boy.  also, in another scene, the boy's sister who was left alone sitting on the lap of the grandfather.  Lilia remarked something about the horror in the poem.  i gave her a copy of a piece by Laux;and she was unable to keep.  we said nothing more.


*


there will be nine one-man shows this friday.  exhibits of selves.  on their papers, the young artists talked so much about their techniques, the how the works were made, too much of it; but too less about the real how of the craft:  the how of be-ing: the space within the armatures.






















 

flooding in another city

almost a week now national news tell nothing new:  flood and flooding somewhere:  the southwest monsoon; torrential rains; collapsed dykes and dams; overflowed rivers; and waves after waves of mudwaters having made their ways to the cities, mudwaters with the strength of twenty or more feet deep burying roads and cars and trucks and houses.  boats hovered by houses' roofs.  no Ark.  and crowding at the centers, the countless evacuees.

the local news tell a different story:  the collision of an oil tanker and a passenger boat.  more than two hundred missing.  a pregnant woman found floating at sea.  and that it has been more than seventy-two hours and so operations have changed from search-and-rescue to search-and-retrieval.  

government, as expected, is diligent on working on blame and accountability: they are out looking for a woman believed to have siphoned money.

the champion church is doing nothing.  while all the weather forecasters tell everyone to continue expecting rain.

but in this place, how the full moon shines quiet and bright.  i try.  the airline tickets lying in wait.














 

looking into the well: pessimism and hope

imagine a deep well.  deep and dark, a surface world of dark water, unmoving as it mirrors: a circular piece of sky, clouds, a moon, a firefly, a hint of shimmering light.  

imagine what lies beneath the waters stone cold.  imagine what lies underneath the ground.  imagine the pull, the calling, the fall.  

sometimes

in unguarded moments, we see ourselves, looking up at us from down the well.

bench at the park by the river

how does a conversation between two humans in their bodies begin?
in awkwardness and in pretension.
pretend the body does not matter.
nor the face.  the length and color of hair, of eyes, of skin.
the kind of smile, the crow's feet around the eyes, the even-ness
of teeth, the lips, the lobes of ear, curve of neck, sound of voice.

in conversation, the two humans list on walls of air
their life's achievements:  the various ways they have survived
the onslaught of years;  the ways they have carried on
all the weight of accumulated disbelief; all the personal
histories seen, felt, or otherwise.  how the body
tends to hide behind the eyes.

if the conversation is long enough, it ends with coffee
together with a hundred other things known
on how to keep bodies afloat on the surface.
 
if the conversation is not enough, the two humans, body-less,
stay on the bench at the park by the river
souls talking to each other, both facing the waters.

supermoon at the edge of the world

when the supermoon happened, what were you doing?

i was out with one of my dogs around the neighborhood.  He likes to sniff his invisible world.  And hide under the warm shelter of things.  Likes cats too.  Likes to sit facing them, and the two of them would look at each other without saying a word, making conversation.

one night in June

one night in june, the moon rose full, a large yellow melon from the edge of sea.
it was as closest as it could get to the land, where its lover waits
gazing at it night after night as only one who dreams 
and loves from afar can.

what is in poetry

what is in poetry that drives us deep into the heart of an unknown, ourselves, hearing only the near indistinguishable, but familiar, echoes of our being?






















 

not talking about politics

the politics in this country has come to such we decide not to talk about it.  a conversation best left unsaid.  we both know the condition of the roads and there is no one and everyone to blame.  now the elections are over, the tellies are beginning to show other things of interest; though a nationwide comedian still banters and makes satire in his primetime show.  you like this, of course.  and basketball, too.  in this country of basketball seasons and soap opera series.  a lost child always seeking to reunite with the lost parent, or the other way around.  in the meantime, the drama.  a masochist nation's form of entertainment.  little wonder the state of the nation.  these, among others, we agree not to disagree.  

nights, i walk with the dogs and watch the halved melon moon.   you call from the doorstep.  we share the couch in the dimmed living room.  i play jazz.  and in bed you tell me i am a stranger without roots.

two million stories

what stories do we keep stored in tin cans, clear glass bottles, and other airtight containers? 

two million stories.


this afternoon, cloudless sky was fishbowl blue.  you would need to see it to believe.  the sky is a paper sheet.  the world a diorama.  

tonight, an orange full moon rose i wanted you to see it.

a million memories.

and more than a half hidden in the cupboards.