Author: Luisa A. Igloria

4.

Tents pitched on a green
portion of land called O-ring-ao:
summer camp and training center
for teachers armed with chalkboards
and The Baldwin Primer (1899).

At night, fires burned
with resinous pine wood. Tin
plates passed from the mess
tent after the summons of 
the dinner bell.

Beneath the trees, lessons begin 
with Aa Bb Cc; illustrations of apples, 
baseball bats, cats. The girls have been 
given white blouses. The boys trade in
their loincloths for cotton drawers.

3.

T-squares, compasses. Graphite, 
steel-nib pens, india ink on drafting 
cloth thin enough to let the light 
pass through. Here are plans 

meant to withstand the very run
of time. Over the orange groves,
a new-pencilled name. And along
the ridge, a row of government 

houses: a cabinet. A group
of tiny rooms within rooms where
governors in hats and tailored
suits sit in front of a fireplace.

Sanatorium, ampitheatre, mess hall—
all drawn as part of one line without
lifting the pen. But the mountains  
will never fit into that grid.


 

2.

Reverberation of hammers
blasting through rock face.
Slag heap and slurry,
as switchbacks 

take shape. From the low-
lands to the last camp, ropes
around their waists, men press 
themselves into the pale 

scar they're gouging out
of the mountains' cheeks.
Shrikes spear the evening
with their cries. 

 

1.

Scarves of mist weave
through pine. On the forest
floor, needles fallen through 
the air like rain. In the valley,

the river cuts a line of liquid
mercury, branching in many
directions. There is that one
day when cattle turn

their heads and villagers 
put their scythes down.
Perhaps it is the moment 
when carts arrive 

with tripods, transits, 
theodolites. White flags
pinned to the earth, as if
that's all it takes.

 


 

                                                                       

[In memoriam, Richard L. Bach; 1938-2026]


                                                                                      "a small repetitive task—
          ritual kinship of every living thing."
                                                       ~ Cody-Rose Clevidence


Prairie grass and wildflowers, morels        waiting
to be gathered at the forest's edge—  yours

in this beautiful life where                 all that the mind touches
might be brought to bear             on questions that trouble us

Here is a secret                                            You were not the only one 
who kept back a seed                                        beneath your tongue

There have been times I've wanted       the darkness to admit me
when I could not bear                   the starkness of winter

We are, said Heidegger, the only               creatures aware of their own
mortality                     But now I want to imagine the most exquisite chorus

An aria of onrushing                 Singing into the throat of the abyss
These increments of time              flecks of gold suspended in a bottle

We've poured them into a glass                    Drank until we couldn't tell
what was enfolded                                       which had come to enfold     





               
                                                                                                            

~ “After great pain, a formal feeling comes—” (Emily Dickinson, 372)


How much time is needed for what must be endured?

In the third movement of Tod und Verklärung, Death invites
a peasant to dance the Trepek in a blizzard until he freezes to death. 

That almost formal moment of stillness in the center of catastrophe—

A once-in-a-century event, they say.

But it happens again in less than a week.

When all the protocols for protection are gone, what can you expect?

First— Chill— then Stupor— then the letting go—

It will be a winter like no other. It will be a summer like no other.

In song 10 of Franz Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, the central protagonist and a miller’s daughter sit by a brook.

She sings, Es kommt ein Regen, ade, ich geh nach Haus. A rain is coming – goodbye, I’m going home. That’s how he knows their love is doomed.

In the late 1890s, fashionable 
Filipina or not, likely you sported a head-
ful of long, flowing tresses. The daughters

of ilustrados put theirs up with tortoiseshell
combs or filigreed paynetas, while the women
who did your laundry let dark waterfalls of hair 

cascade over their shoulders while they beat 
wet bedspreads on river rocks. Lengths long
enough to brush the floorboards, to move 

like another layer over a many-paneled 
skirt. Until, across the ocean, women sheared
the centuries away with scissors, revealing

not just a face but cheekbones. Your hair-
dresser suggests a French bob—a cut 
that hits at the jawline, just enough

layers to add texture to thinning 
hair and a look that says tousled, 
effortless, undone. Clippings 

gather at the base of the chair 
as she works, each strand lifting 
a weight you barely even noticed

before. But that sounds about right:
first the loss, then the feeling of air
moving freely across your nape again.  
 

There are many tiny keys in bowls
and drawers throughout the house.

They should be able to open things like doors
and locks for luggage, but no one remembers

now which ones are coupled. And I myself feel
sometimes like a misplaced rudder, other times

like a sock whose pair went missing, somewhere
between the wash and dry cycles. Years ago,

when I left my first country, my mother placed
a plaster saint in my hand and wrapped my fingers

around it. Its painted skirt is still blue, its halo
a chipped gold. It stands on a shelf of drawers

dwarfed by the telescope which was a birthday
present for my husband, but which he has not

yet trained upon any corner of the night sky.
Time unsheathes its slim blade, releasing each

year’s envelope of unpredictable directives.
These open with no need for keys. Sometimes

there are folded maps inside, islands and oceans
inked in the shapes of rare fish and birds.

Yellow light, midnight:
my laptop battery dies.
I should have closed all
open tabs, wound down early.
Soon the alarm blares morning.

"Go ahead, Lord, break our harp.
We have thousands upon thousands of harps."
                                                                                ~ Rumi


They hang in clusters of russet and gold. Or belled
in orchards, blushed like pear or hachiya persimmon.

Branches bend and the ground receives the weight
they cannot hold. We pick these up too, and save 

their impatient sweetness. In our houses, splintered 
and blackened boards must be sanded down again 

and made smooth. Not all of the season's cold has entered, 
and so the grass has not quite stopped growing. In the bowl, 

bananas that were bruised from ripening were sifted 
with flour and sugar and egg. What rose in the heat 

of the oven was a transfiguration. Resisting his attacker,
a wounded pilot maneuvered the cockpit door open 

as the plane plummeted 17,000 feet in under two minues.
Silence refused to take a seat. Ruin refused a victory.