A SCAMPERING OF GRACE IN THE DRY WOODS: TWO POEMS

A SCAMPERING OF GRACE IN THE DRY WOODS: TWO POEMS

(For my Grandchildren)

RAIN ON THE TRAIL

There is a scampering of grace/In the dry woods/ And a pulse upon some soliloquy: / It is the rain come as a lace/ Smooth and forbidding upon the cup/ Of the dead and dying weather!--- From “Fugue in Narra’s Rain”, Narra Poems and Others, 1968


Something about running naked in the rain
recalls some lost decades withered now in
a fading trail hallooing with surprised laughter
tickled out of our backs by sudden pellets of rain.

The river! The river! Chanted my little lass
skipping to the tempo of scampering rain:

Let’s swim there, abuelo! Let’s dance in the river!
Brown and slithering over scraped-clean rocks,
the river meanders sans snails, eels, or crayfish,
emptied now of carp, catfish, small-mouth bass...

O, how we could have raucously scared the wren
with catcalls while mounting a wading caribou,
but those were noises of our lost years when
naked lads swam with dung and water buffalo.

We can’t swim here, hija mia, City Hall says clean
rivers are for clean table fish. We do have our rain.

 

A BALLERINA ON THE WINDOW

 

(For my ballerinas: Chloe, Sydney, and Taylor)

“Adios, adios, abuelo. Te Amo. Je T'aime! Mahal Kita! Luv ya!” ---- Chloe speaking in tongues.

A glimmer of a sylph on the gossamer bay,
She pirouettes and is gone into her chrysalis
Not unlike the sylvan truants that waylay
The wary wanderer among the trees,

Or the papillon flitting from blossom to bramble,
Hidden but always there, some surprise grace,
A magical fairy light to dispel the creeping pall
Coiled on the winter ennui of fallen days ---

O, she dandles dearly with her ragged ragdoll,
Caressingly delicate in a wistful pas de deux
Of her shadow Fonteyn caught in a sudden fall
By a prancing Baryshnikov vaulting off the shadow.

Was that his pas de chat to snatch her from disaster?
Quickly now, urgently now, hold the hapless Dame
As would a cat curl on the legs of its Master,
Dream now of a demure pas de bourree of fame,

While dreams still enthrall, while the dancing
Is still your language of love, of boundless courage,
While the arguments of your young body moving
To the beats of passion are still the true language

Of the good, the honest, and the beautiful:
Until then, mon amour, these decrepit hands cannot
Stop the deluge of fear, of hurt, and of the frightful
That would drown us all, before our windows are shut.

Even now, as you wave from your window,
I know you will be brave.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

 

TWO WOMEN : SUNDOWN TALES AND CANDLES*

TWO WOMEN : SUNDOWN TALES AND CANDLES*

SUNDOWN TALES

 

For Lola Dora (Sra. Dona Teodora Flores Casuga+)

 

All, all of those shadows that people

my stories, abuela, have their home

in your sundown tales. My poetry sings

 

still with the rhythm of your voice, images

have been shaped before in the pictures

you etched with your face and fingers.

 

They will not be blurred by old minds

fumbling with remembrances, recuerdos,

abuela, of all that you left to sprout

 

in the moist and porous soil of our hearts

and the wild moss peats of our minds,

and every word from my pen is your word.

 

 

CANDLES AND EMPTY ROOMS

 

For Inang (Sra. Dona Sotera Martinez-Buenaventura+)

 

If you were here, I would know where you

are: you would be by the gaping window

where the statue of the Sagrada Familia

 

would be, lighting candle stubs, striking

matchsticks endlessly until all are lit,

and only the sound of struck flint remained.

 

Soon, you would be wandering among empty

rooms, calling out for me to put on my church

clothes for a walk to the Iglesia and pray.

 

However hollow those vaults were, or inert

those icons looked, the walls would vibrate

with your intoned oracion, and I’d feel safe.

 

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

*Culled from "Poesias Para Los Muertos", 10-01-11. If a writer thrives on a spiritual life, these two women, my patertnal and maternal grandmothers, were the wellsprings of that large portion of my life.

TWO MEN IN MY LIFE*

TWO MEN IN MY LIFE*

COIN RACES

For Lolo Candro (Don Alejandro F. Casuga+)

 

Calling it a day at the old Mercado,

do you remember me running to you

snivelling at the tail end of every race?

 

Kin of all sizes and wile would beat me

to all the coins in your trouser pockets

where you kept them as gold for the best,

really, the most agile and the fastest

hands, the greedy and the needy, but you

said you knew I was simply the slowest.

So you had the small pesetas for them,

but you always saved the peso de plata

for me near your heart: your chestpockets.

AN ARTISAN BY DAY

 

For Lolo Jose (Don Jose Buenaventura+)

 

I would look at your fingers, abuelo, if you

were here crouched by my easel, my paint,

my oil, my bastidores. They are my fingers.

 

We hardly knew you, save that illustrados

from the city would look for you if they

needed the latest design in haberdashery.

Don Jose, make my shoulders look broad,

Don Jose, I need to appear commanding;

Don Jose, please look away from my wife.

Swarthy as your Basque roots, your eyes

blaze beyond your gaze; an artisan by day,

an artist and lover, abuelo de mis sueños.

--- Albert B. Casuga

11-03-11

*Culled from "Poesias Para Los Muertos" posted 11-01-11 to highlight two great influences on my art and my other life as a politician and academic: my maternal grandfather, Jose Buenaventura, and paternal grandfather, Alejandro F. Casuga. The etches are how I remember them in my mind's eye.

MONSOON RHYTHMS: TWO POEMS

MONSOON RHYTHMS: TWO POEMS*

 
(For Lila Shahani, Who Finds Hope in the Rain)

RAIN DANCES

Lluvia! Lluvia! It was a chant
sung at the top of our voices,
croaking like frogs hopping
from the rice paddies. Rain! Rain!

Naked, our hallooing was no match
for our scrawny bodies carousing,
running through the monsoon
downpour like scampering chicken.

The rain at the edge of the woods
is not the same rain where we got
lost like cascading lilies rushing
through boulders at the field’s edge.

Rain rips foliages off their branches
like surly gardeners cutting off twigs
from blackened trees and bushes
to prepare for a long, dreary winter.

Lost in autumn’s mayhem, yellow
leaves reel in a wild wind dance
pitching them off to unseen crannies
to rot in the rain like all things must.

But it is not this dying we rue. Lost,
gone in the fall of discarded days,
we scarcely remember rain dances
where we were naked, free, and happy.

— Albert B. Casuga

 

A DIALOGUE ON RAIN DANCES

We even have rain dances, Stick, to pray for rain.
But we still have our little deserts despite that.

The Hopi have it, the Navajo, the Igolots. The lot.
Mayans, Aztecs, and all the prayers they have got.

In the old country, tots still sing that song while
they halloo in the rain, bathing naked in the rain.

“I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain.
I’m happy in the rain, just happy in the rain…”

Why can’t I recall those Gene Kelly lyrics? Dang!
Oh, to feel that downpour on my face again!

In Ranchipur, they un-learned rain-prayers.
Monsoon scares even the farmers and fishermen.

Grade schoolers have even learned another ditty:
“Rain, Rain, go away, come again another day.”

Schoolhouses float in floods brought by monsoon
rains from Indonesia to China. Now Australia.

It’s summer at last, but does it have to be humid?
Poor chap over there has a dour face. He gazes

at his garden, at the portion given to all that moss,
looks back at stunted buds on his rotting trellises.

Like a sad farmer who has lost a crop. Like a sad
father who needed the money to send a kid to school.

“Into each life, some rain must fall…a rolling stone
gathers no moss,” my roused errant friend snapped.

Tracing a searing Gobi in that man’s countenance,
I grabbed its scruff and mumbled: Shut up, Stick!

—Albert B. Casuga

*These Poems were prompted by a post written by Lila Shahani, Assistant Secretary (for Communications), in the Philippine Government.

 

..."He missed the darker magic of the city at dawn, right after the rains -- sky still phosphorescent -- when, once again, everything is washed anew. When children run in the streets and every dim-lit corner is already rushing with the mad flow of exuberant, occasionally exquisite, life.---Lila Shahani, FB post, May 26, 2013

 

A SYLVAN WHISPER OF GRACE

 

A SYLVAN WHISPER OF GRACE

Of what use is a tree if it did not give solace?

She hugs the first one she meets on the hill.
Would she hear its sylvan whisper of grace?

Why can’t a man be like a tree? It is as still

As it should be having listened to all the pain
From that first time he felt her rise to fill

A space that must not be there, a little gain

From what was promised at that first garden:
Loneliness shall not grow where he has lain.

Why can’t a woman be like a tree? It is when

She shelters all from the injury of struggle
That staying alive is the least worry of men

Who must strive to enliven a home for all

As a tree is to a nest or a kite’s port of call.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

Photo Credit: Joanna Allas, Philippines

FEELING FANCY FREE: A LOVE POEM THAT COULD NOT WAIT

 

FEELING FANCY FREE: A LOVE POEM

THAT COULD NOT WAIT

There is nothing but trees for miles from where Allen and Margaret Berrington’s silver Chrysler Sebring was found on Wednesday afternoon. . . .A pair of dirtbikers found the Sebring, out of gas, and Margaret, 91, deceased, three kilometres down the road. . . .Mounties later found the body of Allen, 90, nearby, concealed by a small embankment. How they got there, and why, is a mystery. - - - Kevin Libin, National Post, Friday, June 4, 2010

 

 

 

Something about the spring sun slicing through
Shadows of maple and birches cuddling the road,
Their branches creaking like stretched backs do
When pulled erect from a burden of stoop, load
Of the years fallen off as derelict leaves gone
With the lashing wind, roiled into an uproar
Of rain and foliage --- something about the sun
Caught in her ruddy blush and now gossamer hair
Has sprung a sprightly pull on his flaccid arms
And he was going to enfold her again, trolling
Their road song again: O leggy Peggy in my arms,
O lovely Peggy in my arms! And hear her trilling
Again: Al of my dreams, I love you, honest I do;
Oh, what can I do, I love you so. I love you so.
But something about the spring sun on their faces
Was all he could recall, the sky, and empty spaces.

 

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

 

HIS FIRST DRINK

 

 

HIS FIRST DRINK

 

What is it about gloom and an overcast sky

that calls back from buried remembrances

shadows of a discarded past folded like linen

tacked neatly into closets, camphorated, and

forgotten in dark attics until the next funeral?

Small consolation that these leaves transform

into a bravura of rainbow colours before fall

claims them from their trembling branches.

Blown off with the winds to places unknown,

would anyone recall how they sheltered birds,

worms, held nests in the fork of twigs, even

wayward kites? A fanfare of cricket songs,

however cacophonic, forms part of a memory

when even the bark of a whimpering mongrel

or the monotone of a midnight owl remind

us of walks in the dark trying to get home on a

drunken tune whistled and yelled to the moon:

“I got a little drink, it went to my head. Show

me the way to go home! I did not get there.

 

--- Albert B. Casuga

A WAITING GAME

A WAITING GAME

 

 

Looking for a good time to stop,

is to stop looking, like slumping
on a fallen trunk or a trail rock
jagged and jutting out of the bluff.

Morning walks get longer along

empty spaces before familiar curbs
signal a turn to what we wait for:
the final bend. We are back home.

“HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME.

Now Albert is coming back,
make yourself a bit smart.”* Eliot,
of course, said it for me earlier.

How long ago was that, when I

read those Wasteland lines? How
long have I waited to use them?
Is this a good time yet? I waited.

Because we have seen the clues,

because we have seen them all
already, I feel it is time to stop
waiting, sum up the bill, and go.

What was I given to bear the pain

of knowing that I did not know?
Or build a home I could not live in?
What tools must I now return?

In summing up, I will discount this,

in the game of haggling for a place
back in the Garden. Our stay here
was overpaid. We waited too long

for that room with a better view,
that terrace with a canopy of roses,
and blue birds trilling on the sill.
O, for a touch of that distant sky!

Next time around, if there is one,
I will be smart. I will settle only for
a room where I could see the sky
and the sea conspire to eat the sun.

 

---Albert B. Casuga

 

 

* T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland, II. A Chess Game, T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, 1909-1950)

BOTTOMS OF TROUSERS ROLLED: FIVE POEMS TO GROW OLD BY

BOTTOMS OF TROUSERS ROLLED: FIVE POEMS

 

 

Here, read these to grow old by. You’ll understand why. ---Note to a Friend Turning 80

CUP ON THE BENCH

“Favorite spot,” Nguyen Cao Tran pointed
To the bench on Lincoln Green before
He waved me bonjour the Montreal way.

“Favorite spot for wife and me…drink
Tim Horton Coffee from across,” he winked,
Now unafraid his accent might betray

A Viet Minh rasp from Saigon days,
A shrapnel buried on his nape: “Still smoke
Camel sticks from GI Joe friend in Frisco.”

He looked away when I remembered to ask
About Nguyen Bao. “Isn’t she walking
With you this morning? It’s spring, mon vieux!

He mumbled: “She gone…far away now,”
And shuffled away, his knapsack slung
Like a rifle crooked on his flaccid hand.

A single cup of Roll-up-the-Rim teetered
On the bench the next day while I waited.
No cups on the ground, the bench was naked.



LUCY DOES NOT LIVE HERE ANYMORE

Caminnare. Fare una passeggiata.
Eh, come stai? She shot back looking askance.
Perched birdlike on her stroller, she inched
Her way to the middle of the cul de sac ---

Where I tarried, a wide wave our ritual,
I called out, Come va, Nonna?
Her andador tilted off the cobbled strada,
She stared blankly, but smiled nonetheless
In the courtly manner she never failed to show
To neighbours and strangers alike.

Her sallow skin becomes her regal face,
I thought, but the same face furrowed,
Her eyebrows arched impatiently then;
She demanded: Are you the police?
Or are you my son with a Florida tan
Hiding as usual from me? I called them
From 2441 because I could not find
My house, nor my keys. Was just walking,
Was just enjoying the sun for once.
Crazy Calabria weather. Rain. Sun. Wind.
Sun. Snow. Cold. Hot. Aiee... who are you?

“2441 is your house, Nonna. And you have
A daughter who will be here tomorrow.
And this is Mississauga. I am Alberto
With the nipotes Chloe, Louie, Marie at 2330.”

Aieee...dolce angelo! My angels.
How are they? E come va, amore mio?
Caminare. Fare una passeggiata.
O, come bello, O sole bello!
But you will help me find my home,
Won’t you? Won’t you? Amore?
A lilt on her voice, she flirted rather coyly.

 
WINDOW GAZERS

Sitting on her Florentine chair
Atop the red-tiled stairs, the sirocco
Breeze playing with her ivory hair,
She awaits her turn to say hello:
A caudillo-like half-raised wave
And a schoolmarm’s smile on her
Waxen face, a smirk at times to save
Her some chagrin falling off a chair
While she wags childlike to say:

“Blow a kiss to your window-waving
Girl, say au revoir for now, and pray
That as they grow, won’t stop loving,
And they do grow and go away,
And you’d be left sitting on a chair
Wondering why they have flown
Like swallows, and hope would care
To come back and perch at sundown.”


EL NIDO DESOLADO

(Para mi Madre)

Los pajaritos están dejando su nido;
el invierno de su vida ha venido
tan muy temprano!

Mira! Mira! Madre mía.

Tan fuerte ahora, sus pájaros
están volando a puertas desconocidas;
están volando tan lejos para que
nunca jamás devolver y quedar en la casa
de corazón triste, ahora casa abandonada,
nida desolada, madre mía.

O mi madre querida!


OMNI SOLI SEMPER

“I just wish your Father would come and take me soon. I am tired,” Mother said and closed her eyes. --- From a Visit to Poro Point, Writer’s Notebook, 2009


The flannel blanket was an armour:
it shielded me through nights I needed you
to defend me against the onslaught of day
when I had to rise to know
that the children were all in bed last night
dreaming their dreams or fleeing nightmares
where flailing they fall from precipices
and you were no longer there to catch them
nor were they there to fall in your arms.

Even the sunrise assails me.

I beg for sunsets now and nights to hide me
from the rush of day when finally I ache to see
them home and you beside me asking
how I made it through my day.

When will you come to take me home?

The flannels have shrunk and, threadbare,
They could no longer keep the intruding light away.


---ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

 

THE WHIMPER AFTER: A FUGUE

THE WHIMPER AFTER: A FUGUE

 

This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but a whimper. ---From “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot

 HER LONGING

After after, is there anything or anyone left

to sing the hammock songs? After after,

will you still be there waiting, a warm blanket

in your hands, to throw the flannel on my lap,

lest I drool myself to a sundown slumber

and promptly forget it gets cold in the winter?

Aiee, amor mio, despues de nuestros amores,*

when love is gone, after all the countless days,

where shall we find that place called after?

If it is lost, too, might there be some other?
 

HIS SILENCE

By sundown, they will be gone, like long shadows

on my porch walls. All the fierce singing done,
what remains is the quiet murmur of the bourn.
Its stream will not return, nor will the swallows.

But while they flitted from tree tops to broken

perches, did they not cry out their bravest songs?
These are our elm trees, these are our willows,
we pieced our homes here together, we roosted.

At the bluffs, we find the edge of the woods muted

now. Soon, even the cackling gulls will dive a final
swoon, catch the last crayfish lost on boulders left
bare by ebbing tide that must also leave its shore.

It is troths like these that will not last, nothing

endures. The silence can only become a whimper.
 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

 

 

*O, my love, after all our loving…