Morning is a wondrous haven

It emboldens me to beg the plants around

Tell me where’s the heavenly gate

That leads me, leads me

To the folds of Aphrodite

With whom I can best fashion queries

About the whereabouts of my sweet

Lifetime partner

For indeed weary had I grown

I am disdained by time and fate

Faulted though I am guiltless

I simply hasn’t seen the least chimera

Of my love desire even if ‘tis were

But a mere chimera 

[Writ. 03 June 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

You sweetest Lady are my benign talisman

A billion bewitching charmers combined

Your Aphroditean countenance makes

The mind-rending world of peoples

A magical Eden alive

No more can poetry fathom

Your limitless charm and glow

You are to me the endless narrative

All epics’ visions fulfilled at last

[Writ. 27 May 91, Quezon City, M.Manila]

War is the namesake of the islands

A Dantean discernment will not

Permit one to argue that

The archipelago

Is a paradise

Lost or regained

Of the islands’ fetid state

Excrement and humans sanctimoniously fuse

They cajole in ecstatic screams

Over killings and bombings

Gore is everyday’s luscious panorama

We’re brought back to Rome

Here

Where jubilant crowds satiate themselves

With sights of bloody gladiators

In combat

Brought back to Jesus’ Jerusalem still

Since everyone wants to play

Pilate

Guiltless of motives behind

Wars

In hinterlands

In cities

Is gore the imprimatur of honor indeed?

Just like blood is eaten as delicacy?

[Writ. 29 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

The still calm of the morning

Is as deafening as stories

About crimes

Printed in the dailies

Broadcast on radio

Crime has become the cheapest

Merchandise

Flaunted by its own law

Of supply and demand

Its price roughshodly lowered

By abundance

More abundant

Than mangoes and guavas

They need not be bought at all

So much that even the harmless streets

Of recluse villages

Become zoos

Littered with

Salvaged

Bodies

 [Writ. 29 May 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

A key

Inserted on a doorknob

Cannot turn itself

Someone has to be

It’s turning’s progenitor

What

If indeed a key

Turns a doorknob

By itself?

‘Tis like asking

If a cockroach can

Push an elephant

Or if a gentle breeze can

Knockout a sturdy house

It coheres with the circumstance

When a ball rests and bounces

At the same time

When the slightly probable

Fills the observer’s eyes

As an inescapable vista of verdant forests

Green and lucidly green

[Writ. 29 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

What ought I write again

On this blank page in front of me?

Blank is my mind as a clear

Tabularasa: empty is the world, a dot

On its circumscribed face

Without an iota of an image

On its being.

Fertile is the night.

Cockroaches dance gaily to proclaim

So. What now would preoccupy

The mind?

Frigid is the pen. It cannot roll on

To herald the hymns and notes

Fervently brewing deep in the vats

Of my inner space: thoughts have receded

Without the usual romance with the pen.

[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila. See: IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, UNLADTAU: http://unladtau.wordpress.com, COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com, BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com%5D

Break, break through the barrier

Betwixt time and timelessness!

Descend upon Terra’s mortal face!

Nestle in the minds of knowers

Who’ll catch you a-glide!

As to your catchers who know not

One another, perfect strangers

Illuminate them with your radiance!

A holy fire you are and ever

To all men you’re passed a-glow.

That you land on different mortal

Baskets at one time and only one

Is cause enough for bafflement

For both simpleton and erudite.

But your stately arrival exudes greater kingliness

Then the wondrous enigma you’ve aroused

Risen have you from beneath time’s antechambers

To exterminate the nebulae of ignorance.

[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila. See: unladtau: http://www.unladtau.com, IKONOKLAST: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com, COSMICBUHAY: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com, BRIGHTWORLD: http://erlefraynebrightworld.wordpress.com%5D

Shall we again rendezvous

As the rains and leaves do

To the month of June?

Of what romance are we to partake

When neither of us sees at all

The shadow

Nor hears news and whereabouts

Of one another?

Behold! Walls of time have been built

Between us. The chance of communicating

With one another

Had been buried

In catacombs

Complete with dirges.

[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila. See also: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com, http://erleargonza.blogspot.com%5D

Where are you, sweetest lady?

Long had passed since my heart’s Cupid beating

For you was at its zenith.

You are a living ghost that appears

Ceaselessly on the panoramic screen

Of my cognitive antechambers.

Do our thoughts and hears still meet

Betwixt undefined time and spaces

Like blended waves of twin satellites

Long cut off from

Their umbilical cords?

Or am I just churning reveries

Of a love flame long deadened

By oblivion’s deoxidizing waters?

Please tarry not the questioning

Or goner would be my fate.

[Writ. 27 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila. See also: http://cosmicbuhay.blogspot.com, http://erleargonza.blogspot.com%5D

Noblesse friends of mine across the oceans

Compatriots of my benign land

Apologia is hereby extended to your bosom

O’er my poetic abstinence for quite a time

No explication can come forth from my own vowels

As flash of explications sound like bowels

From dreaded Vulcan’s armpits of tiered toxins

Turns me into a stoned guffaw o’ singing dolphins

Apologia

Apologia and more apologia

Wondrous sib of mine

Birthed by Terra

[Philippines, 14 April 2010]

The body dies, not the person.

Gone is your body alright

As birds announce at night

That gone is the sun

They ought to rest.

Your person, ‘tis a sublime conveyor

Of manifold messages and undying lore

Letters that spoke clearly to the unlettered

And the unlettered, to the lettered

Person is the perfect herald of life

The unlettered at last had eyes

And ears that stretched out to

Infinite worlds a-speaking: we ought make

Justice work finely, infinitely.

Go now, immortal!

Merge with the immense field of the kosmos!

A field without brims

Like you are to your fellowmen.

Rested and gone, be assured

The world will sing tunes of praises

For you a truly glorious countenance

You are a marvelous anthem remembered

Forever.

[Writ. 24 May 91, Cubao,Quezon City, M.Manila]

Tire not, o! sweet mother of mine!

You can never go tired and dreary

Your dawning has yet to show up

Your longevity a million revolutions of Earth yet.

You have travelled too long indeed to make

Your children secured in this world

And abode of monstrous traps

Where unprepared initiates like helpless tots

And teens may unwarily step in undone

In life. You were a shield indeed

Moreso a loving nurturing voice

Of a zillion angels all

A Joan o’Arc for your children.

You cannot tire now

Long will be your pathways yet

And you are already enshrined

In our hearts, beknighted lady.

[Writ. 15 May 1991, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

When is body strong and sturdy

But on occasions of rhythmic rounds

To sweatshops o’ physique’s crafting.

You are the sculptor your body wood

That you will shape with exquisite beauty and

Undisguised strength.

Your shaped physique is one authentic

Samson: it will mortally slaughter

Time as it reposes its own morgue;

Cremated is the browbeating fatigue

You are to your Self no cynic

Smoothened are the chances for your wishes

To do myriad works unlimitedly.

Like a true sculptor fulfilled

In its shaping, you are t’ward your

Physical frame.

[Writ. 15 May 1991, Cubao, Quezon City,M.Manila]

They took him away from me

This canine friend of mine

Whose time a-living was tied up to me

We were one a-corded knot

When ‘twas of tender age ‘twas one

Nurtured by me with a peer’s affection

Upon its

Bathing

Tanning

Defacating

Urinating

I was there on the dot for these tasks

So was there this loving canine to police

The night for kins and myself

Gone it is, stolen

So is the cord broken

And my heart beaten.

[Writ. 15 May 91, Cubao, Quezon City, M.Manila]

b. I think Jose Duke Bagulaya’s Writing Literary History: Mode of Economic Production and Twentieth Century Waray Poetry reads too much like a cross between academic writing and a pamphlet. My former marketing professors would call its style one of the “hard sell.” But regardless of that I do agree with the book’s conclusion though (how the Philippine semi-feudal mode of production, as dominated by foreign monopoly capital, prevents the flowering of Waray Poetry and how the cultural project of the National Democratic Revolutionary Movement goes around this) and found Bagulaya’s theorizing on the appropriation of postmodern intellectual trends for a totalizing Marxist framework quite useful.

c. Finally read Bulgakov’s A Dead Man’s Memoir (A Theatrical Novel) and was a bit disappointed to find it not as interesting as I thought it would be. The novel was humorous and interesting in certain parts but dull in others. The narrative style is reminiscent of Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, one of my favorite novels, but this one comes out as somewhat too melodramatic. Perhaps it’s because the book is a slightly disguised autobiographical account of the publishing fate of Bulgakov’s other book, The White Guard. In one passage, a character described the protagonist as having “a touch of Dostoevsky” about him. And indeed, there is always a touch of Dostoevskian obsession with shame in the the Memoir’s pages.

I don’t know if this has to do with the rise of the Futurist movement during the early Soviet period but it’s interesting to read an account of what seems to me like an early deployment of the concept of the hologram:

And then in the evenings I began getting the impression that there was something colored projecting up out of the white pages. On looking more closely and screwing up my eyes, I became convinced that it was a picture. And even more, that it was not a flat picture but a three-dimensional one, like a little box, and in it, through the lines of words, I could see a light burning and the same little figures that were described in the novel moving about (40).

And yes, the novel suddenly stops when it was about to reach the climax. The Memoir is, unfortunately, left unfinished. Bulgakov leaves those writing fiction some good advise: “One has to love one’s characters: if you don’t have that, I advise anyone not to take up the pen – you will only suffer great distress, and it will serve you right.” ■

Structurally the poem is composed of four nonstandard-length ‘stanzas’ and a final separate line serving as a ‘statement’ or ‘conclusion’ to the thought of the persona.  The enjambment used in the poem is such that, while ostensibly created from three sentences the reader is given an impression of a consciously-constructed piece, where each stanza begins with two bold and solid ‘lines’ followed by a ‘triangle’ crowned with a single-syllable word or a syllable, embodied with a ‘line’ that could range from two syllables to five syllables in length, and based with a line composed of three syllables, as evidenced below:

Dark,and,yet,most,Lit: in,me,an,

Eye,there,grew: springing,Vision,

Its,

Gold,and,

Its,wars. Then,

Stylistically the structure of each stanza recalls a border or demarcation, where the first two lines form a figurative ‘dam’, and the following three ‘lines’ might seem like a trickle that eventually widens into a torrent.  Though what the exactly it is the dam is holding back or dividing could be subject to a myriad of interpretations (and a topic much more suited to scholars more erudite than this essay’s author), given the poem’s inclusion in the ‘Divine Poems’ a philosophical or metaphysical reading might be more appropriate—sacrilegious musings finally given light, or a divinely-inspired epiphany could be seen as valid.

The poem is classified as a ‘Comma Poem’ due to its use of placement of a comma after every word, most of the time without the space as expected in Prose.  Paraphrasing Villa’s own words from the preface A Note on the Commas, the commas not only serve to regulate the poem’s verbal density and temporal movement, it also gives each word a fuller tonal value, allowing the more measured line movement.  It also has the (possibly intended) consequence of altering the meaning of the poem when the commas are removed; as a demonstration of this (the Penguin Classics edition Doveglion: Collected Poems) a version without the commas (indeed, only three are present) immediately follows for the sake of comparison.  Thus a truly diligent reader will have to read the poem unaltered, then with the punctuation ‘normalized’ to gain a better understanding of its theme and message.

The poem begins with the persona in the midst of reminiscing with “When,I,was,no,bigger,than,a,huge/Star,in,my,self,I,began,to,write.”  If one is familiar with the way stellar bodies work, then it becomes apparent that the speaker is already of at least middling age, as stars actually grow larger (at the same time less brighter) as they grow.  It could be compared to the point where a person is past their peak (physically or mentally) but not so much that their faculties become impaired with age, and at that point in one’s life where a person has enough life experience to be considered ‘wise’.  The fact that the first line cuts at ‘huge’ (instead of the word that follows, ‘star’) seems to underscore this temporal waypoint and milestone, where the persona’s musings seem to turn towards how it defines its current existence, its ‘self’ (note how it is not myself, but ‘my’ and ‘self’).  The persona then reveals exactly what it was internalizing: “My,/Theology,/Of,rose,and”.  There’s an interesting interplay of words and references here, as one would expected philosophy (when one assumes that the persona is talking about what defines how it lives) to be a better choice; and yet with the image of the rose (which, while associated with many pagan goddesses is more recently linked to the Virgin Mary) a connection with the Divine is made.

This connection with the Divine is strengthened with the subsequent stanza’s initial two slines, recalling the image of Blake’s work (and incidentally concluding the first ‘sentence’ of the poem): “Tiger: till,I,burned,with,their/Pure,and,Rage.  Then,was,I,Wrath”.  The Tiger, despite being a creature of ‘fearful symmetry’ is sometimes interpreted to symbolize God, but not as the benevolent creator of late Christian traditions but more of a primal deity, mercurial in temperament and fiery when roused.  Contrast this with the often peaceful Romantic imagery that is attached to the Rose, and you will find a conflicting milieu between these two forces, with each seemingly trying to gain ascendancy within the persona’s being (note how the second line cuts at the word Wrath).  This constant state of opposition between Binaries is highlighted in the lines that follow (Ful/And,most,/Gentle: most,) and partway into the first part of the third ‘stanza’ (Dark,and,yet,most,Lit: in,me,an).

From this roiling conflict within the persona, however, an equilibrium of sorts finally emerges, or perhaps a paradigm-shifting revelation judging from the lines in the third ‘stanza’: “Eye,there,grew:springing,Vision,/Its,/Gold,and,/Its,wars. Then,”. It is an epiphany, yes, but of what?  The lines that follow are shed more light on this: “I,knew,the,Lord,was,not,my,Creator!/–Not,He,the,Unbegotten—but,I,saw”.  It is a strange reversal indeed, as this reads like an outright rejection of the Divine, despite the comparisons done in the preceding stanzas.  After the internalization done in the previous stanzas, the conclusion is as baffling as it makes perfect sense: how indeed can someone of the right mind (and humor one would assume) accept a Divinity so different (see unbegotten, as God was not born like People are, but simply is) and despite purported benevolence has much violence done in its name (the Crusades in the middle ages, and the brutal subjugation of the native peoples of South America by the Spaniards spring to mind), as well as the ostentatious décor being flaunted by its practitioners (after seeing the amount of gold-plated icons in some of the large cathedrals, one would think it ironic that humility is supposed to be a virtue espoused by the Church).

With this virtual rejection of the Divine, the persona also reveals the other answer it has reached: that in the end, if one cannot count on God, then one will have to rely on one’s self.  “The,/Creator,/Was,I—and,” seems like the persona’s Prideful ramblings, but in light of its view on the Divine, is a remarkably Humanistic conclusion, that only Man can truly solve Man’s problems.  Although Humanity has more often than not exhibited the capacity to destroy and create problems, one must remember that Humanity can also create, and solve problems as well…And when one accepts (somehow) a reality where the Divine is distant and seemingly uncaring, then there really is no recourse but for Man (as a whole) to rely on its own judgment to see it through into the future, something succinctly encapsulated in the final line of the poem: “I,began,to,Die,and,I,began,to,Grow.”  Despite having shades of the Biblical Resurrection, it seems to posit that, only when a Person has discarded obsolete notions (‘to Die’) will there be ample opportunity to rely on one’s own strengths to improve his or herself.

Thus the poem as a whole could be seen as a person’s rediscovery of their Self, after years or decades of being dissolute, and affirmation of the capabilities inherent in all of us, breaking through the dam built of self-doubt and entrenched dogma espoused by the society the person had grown up in, thoughts that initially trickled through cracks in the firmament, but eventually becoming a broad torrent of ideas—where Humanity CAN stand on its own two legs, without an omnipresent Divinity watching over our shoulders.  It is a revelation that can be cathartic, to say the least.

REFERENCES:

Doveglion: Collected Poems, Jose Garcia Villa, edited by John Edwin Cohen and prefaced by Luis Francia.  Penguin Classics 2008.

The Anchored Angel, Selected Writings by Jose Garcia Villa, edited by Eileen Tabios and prefaced by Jessica Hagedorn.  Kaya 1999.

But she wasn’t drowning.
Her hair was dry
and she had a smile,
not the frozen stun
of someone sinking.

She could have said the word
over and over like she was
underwater.  And this guy,
her boyfriend, I gather
by the way she lost herself,
threw her the look
of someone pushing a stranger
into the cold, dark water.

I pretended to be still
reading the old newspaper
I found in the station.
Whatever she wanted him
to remember, I’d forgotten.

The train was pulling
again and all of us
felt the jolt.

-o-

This was written in March 1995 in a smokey restaurant that used to cater to university students who didn’t care (or know any better) how bad the drinks were as long as they could drown themselves in alcohol in the middle of the day.

I am still looking for the right image to go with this piece.

This poem appears in my book Alien to Any Skin (UST Publishing House, Manila 2011). www.alientoanyskin.wordpress.com

Today I received a copy of Train of Thought, an anthology of poems put together to record a unique literary exercise.

Here is a quote from an Inquirer.net article, Get on board the ‘Train of Thought’ posted a good few months ago.

-o-

The “Tulaan sa Tren” project, which began in August to promote poetry to Light Rail Transit commuters, will soon reach school teachers, libraries and creative writing institutions after it was captured in book and CD form.

“Through the book, you can savor the poems for heavier reading,” said Andrea Pasion-Flores, executive director of project proponent National Book Development Board (NBDB).

“Tulaan,” she said, was such a success that it had gained attention from The New Yorker online, which said playing poetry on the trains gave the publishing industry a well-deserved boost.

By immortalizing the project, Flores said they will create a more lasting impression by distributing the materials to the academe.

-o-

My poem “Train Ride” was included.  This other article from Bulawan Online lists all the other pieces in the anthology.  According to the bibliography this poem of mine was also included in another book, One Hundred Love Poems: Philippine Love Poetry Since 1905, edited by Dr. Gemino H. Abad.  I wonder if I’ll ever see that book.

Unfortunately Train of Thought which comes with an accompanying audio CD of the readings that were played through the PA systems of various train stations is not for sale to the reading public.  Hmmm.  There must be a profitable business venture somehow lurking here.  Yeah right.

downstream of doom to sea we are returned.
Tottering over manholes, shivering in the blast
of a blind monsoon, its hollow howl
the rolling dreariness of our emptied
hills,
our feet doubt their ground where streets
vanish in the gorge and swill of slime –
to flood at last we are flotsam and scum,

houses and pigs in ceaseless procession.
And
rushing past our brethren, those lovelorn
cats and cockroaches, amid floating roofs,
lumbering cadavers of cherished scrap,
our naked brats scamper and gambol
over their scavenged loot of murky things,
tires and handbags and bottles and shoes,

as skies boom and fall thundering spears
on Cherry Hill slumping down its slope
and shoveling homes in one boulder swoop –
landfill of families in moaning mud!
so sudden, their screams no echoes bear,
abducted to questioning rage of mind
by what “state of calamity” or “act of God”

to beat down all curses and tears to tide.
Antipolo to Pangasinan the earth rivers
and shoves down Pinatubo’s renegade ooze
to our paddies swelling to ocean of muck
and fishponds collapsing to swamp;
for bridges are down, and mountains too far,
to flee and shelter from the water’s
gore

among seaweed and driftwood and water hyacinths,
what word, what route? what water world
for breathing space, the floors of our dreams
but shiver their fittings and leak their gloom.
Clutch of seaweed for hair,
driftwood for limbs, hyacinths for a cloak,
what new indigene, only survivor to offer

prayer-wreaths for the dead and the drowned?
Requiescant in pace … vitam aeternam,
so cradle the infant, swaddled in rubble grime,
just now excavated and no mother to hush
its lost wail, no father, no sibling –
surely now their wreck is deaf to cranes
or fingers digging, to what end any change

how in the downpour our towns drown.

Though nothing had changed our lean and hardwood house.
We can still bear our faces on the cracked glass
And be glad that our is personal, be glad
The bed is in one corner, the table nailed in place.

No special feast lies on the breakfast table;
It is rice and fish and coffee steaming and steaming,
There is no wine but a china jug of water
Will do to make us relish appetite.

Everything is spare and useful to keep alive
Talk– such as the rough-grained texture of table,
The stove burning, the floorboards creaking and creaking,
Familiarity still fails to blunt our senses.

Somewhere rich relations are flattening and flattening
Our surplus, yet ours is the nearer country of plenty
As your full breast tames that babe’s loud hunger and
Your thighs conceive of islands green with legend.

This lot may not be worth a curse. All is
Within reach of want as long as love is able.
The sunhammered tree outside our crooked window
Manages some leaves in a dry season.

Did you feel my anger in this piece?
This poem was posted in our company newsletter and a local magazine.
I was very active as a labor union leader when I composed this piece. I was one of those who march on the street with clench fists asking to make a difference…

Though you always tell me you’re real

You said that you loved me with all your heart

And that I’m the best thing in your life

I’d like to believe that it’s true

And spend the rest of my life with you

I want to show you how much you mean to me

I’d like you to know how much I love you so.

We built our castle in the air

I am your princess and you ‘re my knight

We hug, we kissed, and we danced

We made love all through the night

We never care for the uncertain future

Though we knew it would come

I knew that sooner or later

All these dreams will be gone

I often look up in the sky

And utter some prayers

Why you came just now?

Why you’re just a dream?

If only I will be given the chance to live again

I’ll choose to live it with you

I wonder how it is to be in your arms

I wonder how it is to be with you…

There are so many mysteries in this road called life

So many questions that needs to be answered

So many dreams waiting to be a reality

So many pains that must be endured

If I am bound to face it all in my journey

I can do nothing but to walk alone in the road

I have to know where it would lead me

I hope that at the end your will be there waiting for me.

Juliet Bustinera Corpuz 

11-22-2006

Paano ko pa ito ibabahagi sa iyo?

Kung hindi ko alam kong paano sumaya

Paano kita tuturuang tumawa?

Kung hindi ko alam kung paano ang masaktan?

Paano kita tuturuang lumaban?

Kung hindi ko alam ang buhay na payapa

Paano kita tuturuan ng buhay na masaya?

Kung hindi ko alam ang lumakad mag- isa

Paano pa kita gagabayan?

Kung hindi ko kayang mahalin ang aking pagkatao

Paano pa ako magmamahal sa iyo?

Alam kong maraming naniniwala aking kakayanan

Kung kaya dapat lang na ang  sarili koy pagtiwalaan

Alam kong marami ang humahanga sa aking mga ginawa

Kung kayat marapat lamang na ako ay matuwa

Kailangan kung tahakin ang tamang daan

Upang maituro ko sa iyo ang tamang patutunguhan

Kailangang alam kong magbigay at magparaya

At pagyamanin kung anuman ang natira

Kailangan ko munang buuhin ang aking pagkatao

Bago kita matulungang buuhin ang sa iyo

Kailangang matutunan kong mahalin ang sarili

Upang ang pagmamahal na ito ay aking mabahagi

Mahirap buuhin ang aking pagkatao

Lalo pa nga at hindi ko pa kilala ang sarili ko

Para akong isang estranghero

Na kailangan munang makipagkilala aking anino

Ito ang matagal ng nawawalang ako

Tinalo ng mga laban, unos at bagyo

Nakakulong, sugatan at tuluyan ng sumuko

Kung kaya kailangan kong palayain ito

Hindi ko kailangang umasa sa lakas mo

Dahil alam kong mayroon naman ako nito

Hindi ako dapat makiusap na ipagdasal mo ako

Kung kaya ko naman umusal ng mga dalangin ko

Kailangan kong makilala ang aking sarili

Kung ano ako at saan ako patungo

Kailangan kung malaman ang mga kakayahan ko

At lahat ng ipinagkaloob na angking talino

Hindi ko dapat hayaan na ako ay abusuhin

Kung buhay ko man ay masira  dapat ko itong ayusin

Mga pagpapasya koy dapat kong panagutan

Ako man ay mabigo dapat ko itong harapin

Kung kaya nagkaroon ako ng bagong kaibigan

Isang taong kaya kong asahan

May matamis na ngiti sa labi

Nagpasaya sa aking mga pighati

At siya ay niyakap ko ng mahigpit

Dinampian ng halik na mainit

Sinabi kong mahal ko siya

Na wala akong halaga kapag siya ay nawala

At ako ay nabuo nang siya ay natagpuan ko

Isang kaibigang matagal ng nakatago

Na hindi ko noon tinangkang abutin sa kanyang dako

Marahil ako ay natakot sa tunay niyang anyo

Marapat lang na mahalin ko ang kaibigang ito

Tanging yaman siya ng sarili ko

Dapat kong tanggapin anuman ang kanyang anyo

Dahil siya ay ang aking Pagkatao

 Juliet Bustinera Corpuz

05- 11- 2004