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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.

Sunday, January 19, 2014

BEACH SHADOWS AT SUNDOWN: A FUGUE

 
 
A Poem for my Wee Ones. (However grand they become, they will always be my "little ones"---my birdlings----however far and high they fly--to the sun Icarus-like, to the sky; wherever they will be, I will be there. "How, Lolo? You're walking toward the sunset." Go figure, kids.) 

 BEACH SHADOWS AT SUNDOWN: A FUGUE
(For all my Wee Ones* wherever they are or will be.)


1. Here is There

Here is where there is:
do you hear the murmur
of the seawaves laving this shore?
It is the whispered caress of a Mother
finding her little ones romping
among the sundown shadows.
Where the flushed horizon
meets the sea, a Father’s face
gleams ruddy with laughter’s heat
still etched on His crinkled brow.

The little shadows taunt the sea
to reach their limbs. Gleeful,
when doused at last, their now
surprised screams are drowned
by the whimper of ebbtide waves
that has turned to a gentle laughter.

2. His Faith

O, that this cacophony of sounds
becomes the noise of a lifetime
this old heart (from all distances)
could hearken to, leap up to---,
velvety notes of a joie de vivre
this place was built for, made of,
has grown by, and remembered by.

Is this not, after all, the paradise
he thought was lost in time past
now visited upon his dotage
when he still hankers for some joy,
a little life left, while there is time?

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

*Julian Ashley +, Diana Patricia, Daniel Anthony, Matthew Francis, Taylor Lauren, Megan Sarah, Michael Albert, Sidney Alexis, Chloe Dominique, Louis Martin, and Marie Clementine.
 
 

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