Once the lake water was salty.
History points to a volcano island
erupting and cutting off
an inlet into
the open sea.
The town natives still refer
to this lake as dagat.
It must be habit how time
curates an offing
a small opening flowing its way
to the bloodstream until
the mouth
mythologizes into
a brief spreading out:
white feathers
over tell-tailing waves.
My daughter hands me a rock
mistaking it for a seashell.
How am I to know the difference
when her smile disarms me
completely?
There are things beyond belief
which once taken in, pushes us
back into an opening where we are
left to live through.
Revelations will come much later
fluttering in
timed migration.
It is the nearness of a lake
that draws us back in.
Homer Novicio
Homer Novicio is a freelance writer and a full-time father. He has been a resident of Tagaytay for nearly two decades
now, and he hopes to do a historical book on this city by the ridge.
