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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.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

THE QUESTION: A MORNING PORCH POEM



THE QUESTION


Philosophical questions begin thus, like a single leaf
at the end of a refoliating branch on a drizzling day
this tardy spring: which the last blackened leaf
holding on to its perch; which the erupting bird
springing this surprise thus coming unexplained
like a sudden eructation from the belly of the earth?
The leaf should have fallen to nothing in the wind,
the hummingbird about its business of humming.
Bird and leaf, life and death, something to nothing:
the teetering green leaf is a bird drying its wings.
So, why should there be something instead of nothing?

—Albert B. Casuga
05-18-11

Prompt: A light drizzle. The one green leaf at the end of a branch on the otherwise dead cherry shakes itself dry and turns back into a hummingbird.   "A Light Drizzle." Dave Bonta, Morning Porch, 05-18-11 http://www.morningporch.com/2011/05/
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