ANOTHER WORLD

ANOTHER WORLD


When things get bad, remind yourself, there is another world.---Luisa Igloria, “Retreat” Via Negativa*


1.
Where is the other world?
Why is it the other world?
Sounds like a spare tire,
doesn’t it? Don’t worry.
Blow your chances here,
and you will get another.
It is a quick visit anyway,
you would not regret it.
It is the ration store across
the abandoned churchyard.
You will even find an extra
heart there, when yours
turns callous and blind to
all that it was made for.

Was it for love? Don’t worry,
there’s an overstock of that
in the other world. That is
what is in that other world.


2.
Is that not what Good Friday
is all about? God took back
His son, and hoarded it there
in his unreachable warehouse,
beyond the magic of flowers
and the ardence of caress,
because our vouchers would
not guarantee enough supply
just as it always ran out here,
when kindness and courage
were all we needed to protect
the world we know would take
us when no one wants to pick
us up from where we have fallen.

Where we have fallen, where
we could no longer get up from,
why not have another world
instead, rest and be at peace at last?


---Albert B. Casuga
04-06-12

This poem is my response to Luisa Igloria's "Retreat" (another sweetelle) published in Dave Bonta's Via Negativa as part of the National Poetry Month celebration. See http://www.vianegativa.us/2012/04/retreat-2/