The painting started out as one crude sketch,
lines and proportions silly. All over the scenery,
smudge of trees and houses. There was form
and there was no form. Even the wind thwarted.
Galaxies like fireflies searing into the canvas,
the firmament incandescent. And big words
won’t convince the cypress, big words like stasis
and calligraphy. But dear sonnet, you must keep
this nightlight forever, until waves escape the ocean-
sky and that church spire levitates into the ether.
The artist came here to confront issues of the mind.
Within the asylum’s quiet, his strokes maneuver
into clarity, brilliance. Nowhere are his hands
not moving. And this untethered world responds.
Joel M. Toledo is the author of six books of poetry, including Planet Nine. A former literary editor of the Philippines Free Press, Toledo was a recipient of the 2006 National Commission on Culture and the Arts Literary Prize and has won various awards for his poetry in English, including the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award, The Meritage Press Prize, and the Bridport Prize. His poems have appeared in The Iowa Review, ZYZZYVA, The Prairie Schooner, Softblow, and The Washington Square. He has co-edited local and international poetry journals and anthologies, including Caracoa, Under the Storm, and Cordite Poetry Review. A recipient of the Rockefeller Foundation Poetry Residency in Bellagio, Italy, in 2011 and 2023, Toledo was also a poetry fellow of the 2011 International Writers Program at the University of Iowa, USA. He teaches Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Santo Tomas and is a Resident Fellow of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies.
