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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.

Friday, August 24, 2012

ARC OF MEMORY



ARC OF MEMORY


Bright sweeps of sudden light from trucks on the road; arcs of memory on a more interior windshield. From “Reversed Alphabet of Rain” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 08-23-12
 

 All he really must do now is mine those quarries
 of memories, like bauxite, lining the silent boulders
 inside burrowing caverns. They still glisten, these
 cracked stones. Briefly. But he was an innocent lad
 from the lowlands then, he counted them like marbles.

 He saw those stones again on a slow cruise from the city
 where on deck he could see the sea and sky conspire
 to eat the sun, a gem still there. Scouring those lime
 mountains in Les Baux, he shook his trembling finger
 at the source of metals that shaped the monster planes
 that burned his playgrounds with napalm bombs.
 When he was young.



—Albert B. Casuga
 08-24-12

 

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