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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, July 13, 2011

A LEITMOTIF



A  LEITMOTIF 

Would the cup of my palms nestle you?
Give you a nestling’s echoing chamber,
where you could trill all you want or can? 

That wind behind the trees, would it pick
your notes up and let your song be whole
again, your refrains brave and true again? 

Through these woods, troll like a stout
heart whose one crescendo is of gladness
that the day’s night must bring a sunrise 

as bright as it is gentle when it presses
your cold back to a warm hug of home,
where you will fearlessly sing your song: 

Fly with me to the swaying tree tops!
Reach out for me. I am back. I am home.


---Albert B. Casuga
07-12-11


Prompt: My audible heart wants a nest like a cup in the fork of a tree./Lit up at night, in that forest of softened trills, who/knows how the air might shear its stuttering refrains,/join the failed parts of songs as leitmotif?---From “Unending Lyric” by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 07-12-11

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