A Dirge
(Majayjay-Lucban Road,
June 16, 2024)
How swift the shift
from Thalia’s smile
to Melpomene’s frown.
One moment, Jack
was about to crack
a joke. Then smack
into our bus the trike
smashed, a deadly
strike. Traffic crawled
at the bloody spectacle
of the sprawled body
splayed in a strange
angle. Dazed in shock,
I brace myself
for a flying rock or two
that thankfully did not
come our way. Inwardly,
I hum a prayer. I thrum
like an aulos, dirging
on the side of a hillside
road with hairpin turns.
Some Questions
(After Bishop, Tiempo, and Garcia Lorca)
If we had left much earlier, or later,
or not at all, would it have happened,
the death that began that afternoon?
If we had masticated our victuals
more quickly in Max’s, sans small talk
and a joke or two, the postprandial
smoke; or chewed each morsel
at leisure, savoring the pleasure
of old friendships and newer ones,
the hour well spent—the accident,
could we have avoided it, the boy
just turned lad remaining a boy-lad,
not a body splattered with blood
in the middle of a zigzagging road?
Ralph Semino Galán
Ralph Semino Galán is a prize-winning poet and translator, literary and cultural critic, and editor. He is the Assistant Director of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies. He is the author of the The Southern Cross and Other Poems (UBOD New Authors Series, NCCA, 2005), Discernments: Literary Essays, Cultural Critiques and Book Reviews (USTP, 2013), From the Major Arcana (USTPH, 2014), and Sa mga Pagitan ng Buhay at Iba pang Pagtutulay (USTPH, 2018).
