Monthly Archives: December 2011

Mother, the yard’s a-glitter with frost,
and fleecy strips of cloud reflect

off the sheen of an iced-over puddle.
All’s white on white, save for the raven

flash of a wing, creasing the air as it
passes over. I rinse the cups and plates,

I put the folded linens away. Your grand-
child cranks out notes from a tiny music

box: they sound like water drops, perfect
in their brief, round plinking. I think

about the rings you used to wear on your
fingers— the cold cut of diamond chips

inlaid in gold, raised crown of the ruby
pushing up from its leathered chair.

We’ve learned to hold the tastes of fruit
in our mouths, mulled and spiced for winter.

I’m growing out my hair again: it pushes
past my nape, falls in a circle about my

shoulders. At night, in sleep, my right
hand cups my cheek; from habit I turn

toward the window. Behind night’s
lowering net, miles and miles of quiet.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

What’s there to be so worked up about? Is it
an upset stomach, a crumb of moldy cheese,
an underdone turnip, a ponderous chain
that clanks with every careworn step?
Let the snow fall amid the stenciled
branches, let the winds swirl like spirits
whose coming is always foretold, but who
cannot linger. They’re here, they’re here,
they’ve never left. They watch us who weigh
everything by gain, point to the shadows
of things that are yet to come. Curse
or blessing? May you be happy in the life
you’ve chosen. Remember what passed between
us: clear, bright, cold. I know this place,
this tune, down to the last mince pie and dance.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

This is the way it often is, after calamity:
sudden gust of quiet, or spool of open air;

a few hundred feet of nothing. Nothing moving,
nothing doing, gray stasis of between-one-thing-

and-another. Until: closer view of the aftermath—
human figures daubed with mud, pinned under the ruins.

Did you not move quietly? Didn’t you take care not
to rouse the gods, or the duendes, or the anitos?

When you passed a large outcropping of rock,
didn’t you keep your head down? Didn’t you stop

short of teasing the makahiya into folding up its
leaflets? Didn’t you whisper, pagpaumanhin po ninyo ako?

Pray that the river does not rise again, does not reach
its muddy arms to take you in your sleep. Whole

cities have just gone under. When the wind bears down,
every frond bristles with the recent memory of voices

calling children from supper and to bed, singing
simple lullabies, saying Yes, tomorrow.

It’s all you can do to keep from giving yourself to
oblivion. If not for taking the living in your arms.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.