GRACE IN ROSE GARDENS

GRACE IN ROSE GARDENS 

(For all the old friends. Pearl, Udet, Cesar, Paco, Bayani, Isagani...)

Why is growing old gracefully the measure

of what we look forward to when we write

each other these days? How old can we get? 

Will our little rose gardens occupy our days

like we always did,  lancing out thorns from

their trembling hands as they grew away? 

Why can’t we have them snivelling around

instead of listening to our mumbled curses

as the thorny branches whip our wrinkles? 

Where is the grace in pining at sundowns

for those shadowy remembrances when lads

were boys and lasses were screaming girls? 

When will those album pictures, grown faint

now on brittle pages, jump out of the plastic

binders racing to kiss our hands at angelus? 

Where, what sunlit places, would I see them

frolicking free from fears, writing love notes

on some clean sand before tides take them? 

Who will bring that cold glass of lemon tea

while we rock our tired backs on chairs

perched on porches made for these sunsets? 

What grace, what balm is left, growing old

and feeling gray, shall be our final measure

for how gracefully we have received the end 

of days, of answers to whispered questions

of why, when, where, and how have hearts

turned cold in old houses no longer home. 

---Albert B. Casuga

08-30-11