He Thinks Sounds Succumb to Extinction
Perhaps he no longer
gives the same attention
to the sounds that once
fed his senses:
like the inconsolable
sounds of waves through
an empty conch;
the raspy blows produced
when his neighbor
winnows the newly-milled rice,
letting the winds trawl for bran;
the noise of a peddler making
a pitch for his bread of salt
at dawn.
Or perhaps these are replaced
by the loud silence of his
laments for his father.
when grandmother’s gone
why is it that the sunbird no
longer builds her nest
under the eaves of grandma’s
decades-old abode?
i remember her room was
once a bethel of assorted scents
the pungent, Marian
smell of dried Rosal from her
altar and the smell of her katinko
at night, there’s a
tumultuous silence:
no more “o clement,
o loving, o sweet Virgin Mary”
and no more gibberish
recital of the litany.
when grandma’s gone, it
seems her spell and her
grace have traveled with her.
and in the garden, her
moth orchid has ceased
to flower.
Jeric Tindoy Olay
Jeric Tindoy Olay is a teacher, poet, and opinion writer born in Macrohon Southern Leyte. He currently teaches at Ichon National High School. His essays and poems have appeared and are forthcoming in TLDTD, Philippines Graphic Reader, Mekong Review, Paris Lit Up,Quadrant Magazine, Queen’s Quarterly, Ragaire Magazine, Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star, and Rappler.
