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Poetry
While I Still Can
Let me, please
I beg of you
Let me catch the whiff of fresh air
Against my cheeks
The first ray of sunshine
As new day breaks
As it kisses the grass
Green on my barefoot
Before it filters through
The stained glass windows
Bearing memories of a blurry past
Let me step...
On Womanhood
Being a woman
is thrust upon you.
You walk under stars and suddenly
casually,
make a fist in your pocket and
hold your key—like
a weapon.
It is keen awareness
of fabric length,
and clenched assessment
of skin, padlocks, mirrors, stopping cars,
of home routes, and drink offers.
Being a woman is weighing
the chances of...
Birder
In celebration of the October 4 feast of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of the environment and all of God's creatures.
Eyes follow the sound
Ears scan the foliage
Breath on hold
Heart gripped still
Mind wiped clear like the sky in the lake
To await
The moment
The presence.
A...
Shadows of Togetherness
In every harbor, salt clings to skin,
and mothers’ songs drift into dawn,
soft as mango fuzz,
warm as a sun-stroked shoulder.
Markets breathe with spice and voices,
stretching like rope bridges
over rivers carved from memory.
We gather fragments—
grief tasting of smoke and ash,
joy dripping like sugarcane juice,
hope folded...
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...
