You asked to be taken to the sea,
your lucent attention’s final act:
there, perched upon a wooden jetty
shushing the pebbled coves of Calatagan,
you threw a hungry line into the water, and waited.
What you set out to discover, dear poet,
on that edge of raveling brine and land
must remain as wordless then as you are now,
cast adrift and broken free at last, gone
but recurrent as the waves. A child of these islands,
you merely wanted to return, I suppose:
an offering of  faith, a restoration
by the boy to whom the surf had crooned its sleepy song,
who dug his toes into the stippled sands of Romblon
as he stood and dreamed, flinging his gaze beyond the fickle blue
which was his home. I choose to believe
this is the meaning, the glowing gift
of your final, gestured self:
water is our home, the eddy and flow and depth
of our simple birth and ending.
Smug and landlocked into our lives, how quickly
we deny this claim, this light still rippling
inside our skins, sea of quiet and changeless need
heaving carefully with the moon. I see you sitting there,
an old man hunched over his wish
for tiny mouths to take. But already
you are both fish and more than fish:
before anyone can know it you turn fluent,
your words brim past your widened eyes
and trickle brilliant into the foam. Or is it,
as another poet put it, the other way around:
sun, breeze edged with weed and salt, the lapping tide,
this boundless ocean of loved and flitting forms--
a world you once left behind, now embraces you back,
kissing you warm upon the wrinkled brow,
before into sleep you calmly swirl and gleam.

In memoriam: NVM Gonzalez
 

There is a boat, no--
a couple of boats; islands
fringed with palm and coconut,
wild grass, sand in an un-

broken skein, warm sheen of sun
cupped like an unseen hand
around the basin of the sky's
blue skull, causing the cheek
to flush as though it
had been loved

      This blue sky, an egg
cracked on the valley's lip
where it breaks open again
to flood the roof of the mouth
with heat and unspeakable
longings

      The audacity of it--  poetry
blooming at the end of a long
walk, on the lone typewriter
in the dusty town hall

      The boy wakes to the earth's
restless rooting at dawn, hears the sound
of shoots pushing through loam;
the dark earth's loins and thighs
opening to the miraculous
sprouting of seeds and leaves,
a litter of pigs emerging
through the wet, umbilical dark

Everything returns
at last to this island

      The leaf, the boat, turning
and nosing

Toward a memory of sweets
stuffed into the pocket
because once, the boy was ashamed
that his love would see how he hungered

      For love,
for the music, yes,
but also for food

On the belly of the island
the sun beats a steady warmth
so everything that was flung away
like salt over the shoulder, over the dark
and shining rooftops

Can rise again
like bread
 

1 December 1999
Norfolk, Virginia
 

nvm is dead.
neopolitan viridium menacle.
who cares, said the owl.
in this circle, a corpse.
in this corpse, a book.
in this book, a dot.
a circle without a name.
whirling in a seastorm.
just like this cane.
dead snake from paradise.
waltzing along rhumba avenue.
been high so long.
everything looks heaven.
 

I lit my computer screen and was about to tell
America, yes, I've just about had it with the bilingual
Maids next door doing laundry at four in the morning.
"What do you want me to do?  They can't go to the
Wet market naked."  This from my landlord.
I nearly went ballistic, but surrendered instead.
Whatever happened to courtesy, noise control,
Tenant's rights, lease on life?  But before I could
Tell my mother to fix the lock on the door, don't make
A spare, move William back to the couch, expect
Me in a week, two at the most, a hundred letters
Jammed my 14-inch mailbox.  All by people
I didn't know or couldn't place, sadly informing me
The passing of Philippine National Artist N.V.M. Gonzales.

Little did my electronic informants know I was just
Around the corner ---- only traffic separated me from
The man of letters - getting ready to bite into a slice
Of a belated birthday cake when a professor and friend
Of the writer entered the teachers' lounge to say,  "N.V.M .
Collapsed while undergoing dialysis, and is now brain dead."
Silence and sobs choked the room before the news
Vacated  into the adjoining department, for grief no
Matter how controlled, can pass even through the
Thickest walls.  Immediately I lost my appetite
For the sweetest things in life and was replaced
By a recollection of my first encounter with
The writer whose main contribution to literature
Are his narratives about exiles in their own country.

Flashback: A crowded room about to be covered with
Kundiman music.  The celebrated writer, for he
Had just been named National Artist, was in his cap
And cane.  A poet, Abad, I think, introduced me to him.
"I commend you," he said, tapping his cane, "for using disco
Lyrics as a metaphor for the immigrant's all-American dream."
He then asked if I, too, practiced the aesthetics of simultaneity,
Or what he later explained as the ability to write and occupy
Two disparate spaces at the same time."  "I don't know,"
I said, "but if you mean crossing a Manila street in front
Of moving vehicles with a poem in my head then the answer
Is yes."  A friendship was formed in the here
And there.  Unexpectedly, a thought invaded my head

Pushing a smile across my mouth.  Don't you get it?  I wanted
To shout to the faculty members.  The man was gifted with
Words and symbolism: He was cleansing his blood
Before making his exodus, that cheeky guy.  But I muzzled
Such epiphany and went straight to Utopia Cybercafe.
Inside the chat room, I told my friend Lori in Seattle all about
The tragedy in Manila, the absurd thoughts that interrupted
My lament, how the word dialysis for some reason kept
Going in circles in my head.  "A stubborn entry is always
Worth looking up," Lori, an etymologist, typed.  "What
Are you hinting at?"  I asked.  "Break the word apart then
Go back to Greece," she said.  Later that night, I looked up
dialysis in the Oxford Reference Dictionary.  What I found
Was a noun describing a ritual, i.e., purification via separation.
Then, sure enough, there it was: dia, meaning "through" or
"Across" and lysis, a suffix from luo, which is to set free.
And taking etymology into consideration, I, as an exile,
Comrade of Gonzales, and student of words, dutifully obeyed.
 

3 December, 1999
San Francisco