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Philippines Graphic Reader
Sagada Scents
I wake up to the
Aroma of arabica
This gray morning
In this now quiet town,
There’s gentle drizzle
Glistening on rooftops,
May it turn to rain,
To ease the pain
Of trees in nearby
Burning mountains,
And quench the thirst
Of parched payew*
In distant villages.
*payew – irrigated rice terraces
Jawo’s Last Game
He sat on the bench at the Coliseum, feeling a bit cold, so different from the times he would preside in the center of the huddle, saying “this is you,” as he manhandled the round colored magnets on the coach’s board. He sat...
Kintsugi
How beautiful it is
to be conceived as earthenware—
tilled from soil,
pliant with water,
kneaded by skilled hands,
tempered by fire,
birthed by kilns.
Sacred. Inspired.
Where in rain, we are porous
and in any water, we saturate
without having to expand.
Uninclined...
Boy in the Forest
Small step by small step I walk slowly toward the edge of the forest. It is early morning. I can hear familiar morning sounds. This is where Father takes me sometimes to gather firewood, herbs and edible mushrooms while I hold on to...
The 2024 NICK JOAQUIN LITERARY AWARDS’ 82 GRAPHIC SALUTE AWARDEES
“Publication is the first hurdle of a writer who wants the public to read his or her work. Publication is the first level of the competition for public awareness. To breeze past the line-up of a hundred or more writers who submitted their...
The Heart Wants What It Wants
Such a slim volume but how sharply it connects, the Reader muses, feeling as though a door were creaking open as Annie Ernaux’s “Simple Passion” triggers a meandering meditation on how sheer emotion runs the day-to-day.
Teetering on the brink of 50, the...
