(For Salve, Gigi, Rose, Mervin, & Efren)
We vowed not to sabotage
The rain-soaked sun
In this Saturday
Of our meeting again.
The six of us promised each other
This panacea to a grand lie
We would not submit to:
A pot luck of joy and sorrow
In the sundown light
On the 5th and Normandy.
And then the many remarks
On the past, witty and sarcastic,
To redefine the bile and venom
In the sad secrets
We have kept to ourselves
For so long.
And then lots of hearts
And then lots of laughter
To lead us back to where we are.
There, in the innocent nook
Of an apartment
Of announcements
Of courage found
Of strength regained,
We are all reminded
Of home and hearth thousands
Of miles away, the vast
Blue sea in the distance.
The abode of the compatriot,
Partner to this struggle
We have covenanted to see to its end
Becomes our only sacrament.
In this place lived only
During the late night hours,
We tell our stories again,
Recite them word for word
From the storehouse
Of the faith healer's
Memory of brilliant vision
And fierce resistance,
The giving of the gift
Of healing and acceptance.
And then
We begin to weave
The images, clear and concrete,
Of that big dream
On a canvass of red
And velvet, the silkier
The surface the better
To allow the tears to slide,
Freely and ever-flowing,
To wash away our common pain.
Because we are going
To shed tears again
This Saturday.
This has become a habit lately,
A ritual that has been necessary
For us to fall asleep.
We count the timeless times
Of our own terror.
We count
The cold of the calendar,
The rain in the days,
The chill in the months
That mourned for us
And the passions are stirred
In these moments of fringing
On what fear is,
The year we yearn
For our salvaged selves.
Aurelio S. Agcaoili
Los Angeles, CA
Dec. 4, 2004
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