THE QUIET DISTANCE: TWO OTHER CHRISTMAS POEMS

Photo by Bobby Wong Jr., Philippines

THE QUIET DISTANCE

(For Mother on Christmas 2011)

At night, in sleep, my right/ hand cups my cheek; from habit I turn/ toward the window. Behind night’s/ lowering net, miles and miles of quiet. --- From “Because it is Years since I Last Saw You, Mother…” Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negativa, 12-25-11

1. Her Noche Buena 

Did you wake up for Noche Buena?*

Lit the balled candle on the belen?* 

Do you still put those candles away

for another Pascua de los muertos?* 

I can almost see you cranking open

the heavy lid of that narra trunk 

at the foot of your bed where his

picture stands sentry while you sleep. 

How long did it take you this time

to rearrange the animals around  

the manger? Reposition, you’d say

but they’re always in the same place. 

The lamb snuggles closest to the box

you stuff with dried grass for hay, 

the ass farthest, the horse between.

Why? I would always ask while I, 

insolent tot, handed you the wrong

fauna at a time. You would laugh 

at how San Jose landed on your palm

when you asked for the donkey, an 

angel when you yelled for a shepherd,

a magus when you barked for a burro, 

and on and on until you’d pitch me

the hard-packed ball of saved candle 

drips from father’s grave on the one

other fiesta you’d get up from sick bed 

for---but Noche Buena is a rare treat:

you’d eat pan de sal, a whole banana.

2. Her Belen de Pascua

“Para mi fuerza, para mi belen de pascua,”*

you would sheepishly explain an appetite 

we plead for each day you’d remember

father building the manger with you long 

after he had the last laugh when, like me,

he would give the dingiest animal figure 

instead of a king, a shepherd, or an angel,

and simply did not get up from a crumple 

laughing at you when you threw him

back the make-believe cow dung, manure 

for the grand project of a straw stable

that father said was wrong: it was a hole 

in the city of Petra in that Bethlehem hill,

and there were no inns to take Him in. 

You buried him with that Belen de Pascua,*

Mother, and could not quite remake one 

you would delight describing to a devil’s

detail to polite and knowing neighbours, 

who would drop by to gawk at your porch

where the only clay image in its right place 

was the baby in the manger whose name

you kept on muttering was father’s name. 

On nights like this, I scare myself, Mother,

with the spectre of the quiet distance.

---Albert B. Casuga

12-26-11

  

*Noche Buena, Christmas Eve; belen,  Christmas manger; Pascua de los muertos, Feast of the Beloved Departed; Para me fuerza, para mi belen de Pascua, for my strength, to build my Christmas manger.

Photo by Bobby Wong Jr., Philippines