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Poetry
The Gardener
Flowers grew in the cracks
of the gardener’s calloused hands
as she glanced at the garden she cultivates
She never wanted to disrupt their growth,
yet they need the cutting.
The plants got hurt,
yet they bowed at the gentleness of her pruning.
Her finger bleeds,
yet she will always be...
On Session Road, Remembering Mike de Leon’s Kung Mangarap Ka’t Magising
The projector hums. In the theater’s dusk, a flicker unspools
a world. The scent of rice wine and stale popcorn grounds him,
a shadow of a boy who sinks into the creaking vinyl seat.
He came to this darkness seeking a map to a life he...
Still Life with Twelve Sunflowers, after Scrolling
Van Gogh’s sunflowers —
all twelve of them —
so lively, lush,
standing, bending;
they do not submit
to ikebana’s poise
and posture —
golden — no — bronze —
beautiful yet strange.
I am certain
this is the color
of grief thick as impasto,
of desire leaping
like a gazelle,
beyond the canvas’s frame —
wedged in...
GUERILLA DOWNPOUR
There is no warning—
the sky, a sudden insurgent,
opens with
guerrilla downpour.
Torrential rain,
an unrelenting witness,
assaults the fragile spines of trees
and the quiet bones of houses.
Water spills, not as mercy,
but as a force that shatters
the brittle calm we cling to.
In the heart's small orchard,
the fruit...
Salt Prayer
"There must be something strangely sacred about salt.It is in our tears and in the sea."from SAND AND FOAM (1926) by Khalil Gibran
Matthew 5:13— "You are the salt of the earth. But ifthe salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made saltyagain?...
On Sundays…and Belonging
On Sundays and belonging,And when I used to mess around with Lolo’s typewriter:Clicking and clacking the worn-out buttons, it is legacySounding against my stubby child fingers.
You would often tell me stories about Mindoro:Of your father and the town hall—how he would walk a...
