Mom

for Gigi Lorico

She loves how your hair coils

and sticks to the skin

of your sweaty nape,

forming intricate patterns

of rings and waves.

Your skin, pale and soft,

Reminding her of the clouds you watch

drifting across the skies,

like how dreams move to and fro your mind.

Dreams not only of gold and mansions

And other worldly possessions,

But of greener pastures, clear streams;

A peaceful scene.

Dreams; things you were once hopeful for,

But wistfully passed along to her

All through the toil

Of sapping pellets of sweat

from your skin,

on your nape,

below your scruffy bun,

now visible to her eyes.

August

I witness lightning forking like an erratic dance

while the rain pours the hardest in August.

The grasslands turn crisp, brown as the season

reverts its hottest on a May day.

I like to feel the fresh mist of dawn on my just woken face,

watch the clouds crawl

across the sky, being blinded for a moment by the round sun,

and count until the moon soars up, leading a march of stars.

We may not see it,

but the cells on our skins are constantly wrinkling.

At times the clock gets broken and stops ticking,

But time will not relent.

Like a girl entering her first period,

or a middle aged woman going through meno-

pause,

there’s always the arrival of August.

The Archeologist

She examined the traces of a leaf

fossilized on the solid asphalt soil.

As she touched the embossed print,

she theorized what grows before

the tall industrialized rectangular trees.

With the sun assisting

She scanned her surroundings.

She then wondered what swarms before

those vigorous aluminum vehicles

lining on the road like huge versions of ants.

In this forest of metals and steels

her hunting begins

of the infamous myth-

The Garden of Eden.

She searched with science,

measured with mathematics,

to rediscover the lost paradise,

or at least formulate hypothesis

to her queries.

But as the truthful sunlight reveals,

 all she found

were relics and dust

of the once prestigious refuge,

floating in the atmosphere.

Moon

The moon is an eye,
strolling along the elliptical tracks
around the earth. Lurking beneath
the sheer sheets of clouds,
enthralled by the scene below.

It encircles the world, roaming
like a tanod¹ with his silent alarm
not even the nocturnal hears,
more so the naive asleep.

You on the other hand
stare back, charmed by its coiled craters,
wondering if they are the source of its enigma.
While the shadows of its crescent light, mark
under your own round eyes.

Because you believe
the world unfolds
in the depths of darkness;
what is hidden in sight
reveals in the absence of light.

Yet, when the equinox comes
the moon remains modest
juxtaposed to the potent sun.



tanod¹
- sentinel n: a Filipino word for one stationed to keep watch and guard against surprises