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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.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

FEVER



FEVER

My errands get simpler now: cut marks
On trees, branches, rocks, leaves, walls,
wherever I know you will wind your way
coming home. It is a long route back. 

But you will find them like those prints
of fallen leaves mottling the lake girdling
bluffs we run to when we retrieve lost
memories that somehow remain clear: 

we smell them, we touch them, we feel
them like waning fevers that stay warm
on our flushed faces. We will not forget.
We are condemned to remember. Always.


---Albert B. Casuga
07-13-11


Prompt: Your fever breaks;/then the longer route home, blue-girdled by lake/water that bears prints of leaves fallen, still flushed.---From “Traces” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 07-12-11 

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