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ALBERT B. CASUGA, a Philippine-born writer, lives in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, where he continues to write poetry, fiction, and criticism after his retirement from teaching and serving as an elected member of his region's school board. He was nominated to the Mississauga Arts Council Literary Awards in 2007. A graduate of the Royal and Pontifical University of St. Thomas (now University of Santo Tomas, Manila. Literature and English, magna cum laude), he taught English and Literature (Criticism, Theory, and Creative Writing) at the Philippines' De La Salle University and San Beda College. He has authored books of poetry, short stories, literary theory and criticism. He has won awards for his works in Canada, the U.S.A., and the Philippines. His latest work, A Theory of Echoes and Other Poems was published February 2009 by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. His fiction and poetry were published by online literary journals Asia Writes and Coastal Poems recently. He was a Fellow at the 1972 Silliman University Writers Workshop, Philippines. As a journalist, he worked with the United Press International and wrote an art column for the defunct Philippines Herald.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

FORECASTS



FORECASTS
I wake up mornings now counting
what’s left of my constancies, like coins
in a child’s piggybank. That everything
is in a constant flux is itself constant.
But I stay grateful for the same sun
rising over the mountain ridge at cockcrow.
At sundown, I chirp with the swallows
as they perch to wait for that same sun.
My yesterdays and tomorrows are twin
pictures of what was and will be or might
have been, like the ebb tide that will still
be there erasing footprints left on the sand.
Will there be old footprints there again?
It is a rhythm of a quiet watch over how
soon the death we have been born with
will pay its final visit. Quite like a cricket’s
chant describes the kind of day I’ll have,
after my tea, after all the teas of my life.
—Albert B. Casuga
06-17-11

Prompt: At 8:47, the sun puts in its first appearance. The cricket in my garden—the only weather forecast I follow—doesn’t miss a beat.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 06-17-11 http://www.morningporch.com/2011/06/ 


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