My photo
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.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

AN ARC OF MEMORY



AN ARC OF MEMORY

All he really must do now
is mine those quarries
of memory, like bauxite,

lining the silent boulders
inside burrowing caverns.


They still glisten, these
cracked stones. Briefly.
But he was an innocent lad
from the lowlands then,

he counted them like marbles.

He saw those stones again

on a slow cruise from the city
where, on deck, he could see

the sea and the sky conspire
to eat the sun, a gem still there.


He scoured the lime mountains
in Les Baux; shook a trembling
finger at the source of metals
that shaped the monster planes
that burned his playgrounds.


With downpours of napalm.
Bombs.
When he was young.
But he is old now.
And he is on a dream vacation.


 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

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