As the car was winding down Zigzag roadOne sizzling afternoonI gazed at smoke billowing, spiraling up the sky from a distant mountainGreen turning brown turning gray turning black, signaling that summer has begunDefying the month of preventing fire.It raged ‘til eveningFanned by the...
then, when the star-studded skywould brighten our upturned faces,we liked to believe it filledus with real brilliance,gifted down from the layof the galaxy, so that when we sleptwe would be glowing inside. now,whenever we are awake,in stillness, or still-captivatedspell, we who have soaked...
For three yearswe were buriedunder these masks.
Three years of breathingthrough our eyes, sheddingour days, one after the other.
As this thin cloth cut deep lineson our faces, they remind usof real dangers and hidden wars.
As the years flow into these threadswhen woven tight, they...
Love is what makes music take nature’s shape.Heart singing through the warbler’s throat,Storm clouds curling, calm ripples ‘round a boat,Music is water, its shape as love dictates.
Water’s wisdom: its own level it seeks,Heart must sing in flood or drought:Love’s warm embrace it cannot...
There you go again,Praying for yourCreature comforts.Brain’s drying up,I see,Though summer’sNot been around
That long.Seasons haveTheir uses,Did you know.Summer is so thatFlowers can growAnd bees can sip
Their honeyWhile they waitTo fruit. GoodFor your stomach,Not just sight.Don’t pray summerAway on the
Excuse of waterFor the dams.Those...
After a year of hesitant whispers, Their mutual nodTo terminate the engagement. Clouds of unknowing Drift over Paris, The syllogism of parting Known only to Maria WodzińskaAnd him.
Perhaps, it was her dread Of his unrelenting winter fever—That famished lout gnawing At his lungs, bound to consume him Fourteen years hence; Or the...
Brighter than a thousand suns, / am become Death. Yet, as atoms split, re-configure, they sometimes moderate to re-arrange the glories in the bud, the splendours in the bush. Under a cleansing Heaven, life re-bIooms, charged and changed through a quiet, latent in that self- propelling spirit, there since our isIands’ birth.
This is how you make sinigang:
Take a kilo of buto-buto,
wash it under running water.
Use your fingertips
to grope each piece
for stray shards of bone,
and don’t...