TALES ON ARRIVING WHERE WE STARTED

 

TALES ON ARRIVING WHERE WE STARTED

We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time. ---T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”, Four Quartets

1.

By the time we got back,

the river had run dry.

Did we not plant stones

here to mark how far we

could swing on the vines

before springing naked

into the murky mudpool

to swim with the carabaos? 

Look, the boulder of hearts

is still there—with names

of the little boys who died

stealing unhusked corn

from the bursting granary

of the only farmer in town. 

Before hanging himself

from the barn’s only rafter,

he singed the bales of rice

and hay covering the sacks

where they hid, giggling

as they watched maestra

wrap her clean legs around

their math teacher’s waist,

and cried endlessly for god

or gods, for she felt good. 

2.

The fire ate them all, lads

still convulsing, teachers

still locked and quivering,

tubercular farmer dangling. 

If the river were still here,

it would roar with stories:

the boy who survived, he

became the town mayor,

and he had the river bend

away to parch that farm

and plant the rock naming

it The Hardest Monument

for lads who still guffaw

when comparing versions

of that tale about the boys

burning while their eyes

melted popping, and their

cheating mentors rolling

on the hay, while farmer

firebug swung his cuckold

heart away watching his

unhusked corn stock move

and his piles of hay tumble

pell-mell amid entreaties

to the gods to make those

burning moments last. 

Rain caught us munching

corn from the burnt cob

at the corner store ran by

the farmer’s orphaned girl

who kept laughing at our

raunchy tattle-tales of fire

and monuments to tickled

voyeurs watching lovers burn. 

Like old men in empty spaces,

we come back here to laugh

at what meaning we could

gather from our beginnings.

 

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA