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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, September 23, 2011

TO CATCH A DREAM




TO CATCH A DREAM 



At the woods’ edge, the yellowest birch seethes with small birds—kinglets, I think. But by the time I fetch binoculars, the tree is still.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 09-23-11




The yellow birch tree quivers
from the sudden ambush
of twittering kinglets flitting
noisily from fenced-in trees
at the wood’s edge: it relieves
me of an ennui I have nursed
with the frigid gust of an early
equinox. I shrugged: Leaves
returning to shorn branches. 

The moving colour burst jolts
me out of the gloomy confines
of a hell I created out of cabin
doldrums and infernal rainfall.
How can all this beauty waylay
this grim desire to find a still
point whence I could abandon
a plague of hoarded loneliness? 

I must get out to catch myself
a dream: Where has it gone,
that bright touch of memory?
How can I lead it out, set free?
A hapless Orpheus who must
not look back at my Euridyce
come back from doom? I turn
around to look at the birds,
but the tree is still and green.



--- Albert B. Casuga
09-23-11


3 comments:

lucychili said...

i love the way that your small community weaves and reflects poems. =)

ALBERT B. CASUGA said...

Thank you. Feel free to join us in this poetry collaboration.

lucychili said...

i am from adelaide australia so my seasons are out of step, no squirrels, perhaps possums. i will keep reading and see where i can fit =)