(For Salve Esperanza, because you know the exile's story)
Pissed off we all are on this Monday
Of our empty dreaming. The sunlight
In our hearts fails, fades as it falls,
Reaching us somewhere in our own
Hidden hopes for our exilic loves.
The sighing continues with each
Beat of life pulsing for pennies,
The crumbs of those who declaim
About justice and kindness,
Their language a lie, coveting
The titles of our songs, lines
Of our hymns, the ones we hum to lilt
Us to reclaim the morning, wintry and cold
But loving us just the same
And the waters and the waves soothing
Us, salving us as we snatch
Our season of rest. Even as the office
Door frames you today, announcing
The bright light you bring, I hear
The throbbing of tear swelling, surging
Into sad, sad rivers becoming wild winds,
Whirling and swirling to make dust
Out of promises until all of us who know
Are windswept back into the salvific shores
That are eponymous to your name.
*Published in the Labours of Love, Spring 2005
2 comments:
Manong,
Thank you for expressing our agonies freely... more than our emotions could ever show... more than our eyes could ever shed tears... for letting the world know how we endure our day-to-day life in the four corners of the cage we were in before!
Salute,
Ading Salve
dear ading,
because we are witnesses now: in blood and flesh, in truth and in fact. there is no turning back this road to decency and self-respect. this is the only moral road.
yes, i carry the sorrows and the sacrifices in my heart and turn them into living words, into poems, if only to be healed of the wounds of exile.
manong A
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