| The
Grove
Darkness
gathers
in
the grove--growing in the branches,
drawing
the leaves together.
A
hushed process, this ritual of surrender.
Night
comes out of the foliage
and
approaches the door.
Soon
what is left is called
memory;
there is time enough
for
sharp and pointed
words.
So close the door when you leave.
It
is cold beneath the trees, colder
where
light withdraws,
where
shades assemble.
I've
had enough
of
dark silences. Outside,
the
trees shiver, knowing
the
touch of night bristles
in
each shadowed leaf.
And
look, they seem to crouch
as
if about to pick something up. Only
they
don't, knowing they are watched.
Believe
me, you don't want to leave anything behind.
So
did you see it? No?
Too
bad. Now you are outside,
and
the trees lie invisible; it is the night
claiming
you.
The
Possible City*
For
Doc Ed, who stayed
Of
all the things we had found
in
that twilight we never did catch
until
the last day, homebound,
we'd
all remember
this
one: the glint of a beer can
washed
up on the shore.
All
of us welcomed its arrival;
it
swaggered its way towards us
from
beyond the horizon
whose
day-glow and contours
we
had all memorized.
It
was just there--eyeing us
in
the disappearing sun's playful ember,
like
the god of mischief himself.
Brewed
by the sea
and
now cradled by the foam
but
empty,
past
the islets of rocks
and
the careless tip-toeing.
We
had hoped it was still unopened,
that
some good-spirited genie was inside,
keeping
the key to this twilight place,
this
unmapped island of Bacchus,
this
possible city drunk from too much sea.
Our
wishes would have been as unanimous
as
the wicked grin brimming on our faces.
We
lined up on the seawall much, much later,
the
last drops of once-bottled sentiments
now
spilt on each other's tongues.
There
was nothing else but the whispering waves
and
the imagined tink of a beer can
occasionally
hitting the rocks:
now
filled, now half-filled,
now
empty.
* first
published in the Phils. Free Press, 1998
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