Alunsina's Return

There came a time when his grief,
so long held at bay, finally
shattered into storms of sorrow so vast
that it poured in seemingly endless torrents
down the lands and oceans which teemed
with the life he had created,
that Tungkung Langit himself, lord
of earth and sky, could only just fold
unto himself. He became the blanket
of darkness that covered the sun, so that night and day
turned into one seamless lapse,
and all that was known of time fell
away into one confused heap of endlessness.

His regret rained down in sheets,
his cries thundered into the endless night,
his fury, the lightning that shafted across the horizon, cutting the sky
into momentary twilights. And soon, everywhere
was heard the sound of sorrow, for all things
wept as the god did the. The tallest mountains stood
wearily against the beating wind, flowers
and trees cowered in fear
at the deluge of anger, of despair,
and the sounds of woe echoed across creation-
for Alunsina, the lost one, who had disappeared
the day Tungkung Langit fell at her with his wrath,
so that no more songs were heard,
and only empty sighs lingered across
the stars, which were her jewels,
echoes that hung upon the lonely moon,
which was her comb, upon which was suspended
a cloak of seemingly eternal darkness.

But at last, across the lapping waves of the ocean, a soft whistle
was heard, so that the tide mellowed
at the moon's bequest for quiet,
the better to hear the enchanting sound.
It was that of a flute, lovely and sweet,
balm to anger and all things destructive,
music that soothed the storm into submission,
as only Alunsina's hand could tame water
and it was she, now, who came walking
with the dawn, for at last time had again
let itself in with the first rays of the sun.
At the sound of her footsteps, the sky
rumbled into silence, as sudden
as Tungkung Langit's first cry had come, for now
he had stopped his sobbing, and with breath held,
he listened to the glide of softness
stealing in with the morning.

Afraid to look (for what if it were not
she?), he did not see how the horizon
had once more put sea and sky back in place,
yet he heard the wind now quiet down
at a bird's soft cooing, heard how the things he had created
now bowed in gentle reverence and gratefulness
and he knew, at last, that Alunsina's was the hand
that touched his wearied shoulders,
the hand that drew him back into daylight,

Marginalia

Never ignore the footnotes is a line

I love well. He always read them

last, I did as the author told, 

my heart fluttering at the sight

of the tiny numerics linked by almost

visible threads to the definitives at the bottom. 
The almost, I often went beyond:

presumptive and co-author, 

admiring critic, worshipping student--I wrote

on the margins as if 

I had the right to those spaces. 

I underlined, put checkmarks and crosses,

insisting while he shook

his head at my dog ears, clicking

his mute, disdaining tongue 

at my clumsy scribbles:

This is foreshadowed by the preceding stanzas;

still, it is jolting enough.

I tore the page and hid

it in a box.

This footnote says:

Adjective. amoureux (feminine singular amoureuse, masculine plural amoureux, feminine plural amoureuses). 

we are subject and reader

I show you the words and you nod

at the childhood I have let you into,

the years I had written after the brackets

dividing time into epochs, an epic of a life:

a tiny ballerina twirling under friendly lights;

the singing child, singing her way to adulthood;

a girl with eyes that stared, wistful, at the moon;

the disillusioned grown-up, gathering her losses;

the woman who lived, the woman

who lives. 

You read the page--footnote, 

marginalia, pointing at the brackets--

you can write more here,

and I jot down:

You are  my

stream of consciousness.

Colors, III

What color is distance--

what color the distance between then

and now? Aqua, you say, like the water

beneath this less than riotous sky.

Cerulean, the calm in the hearts, beating, crimson,

inside us. You and I, staunch as indigo. 

How far, my love, how deeply 

we have fathomed those sapphire depths,

the gold of the sun coating the spruce

underneath

with light, a shimmering, honeyed subterfuge 

for the darkness we have drawn away, 

the undertows we braved, sable, onyx, obsidian,

the slate-gray whirlpools we drowned in and rose from

with only the unbreakable faith 

in what cannot be seen. 

Courage is ebony, rival to evening's shadows. 

But tonight, we paint the sky coral--

crepe and peach, flamingo and rosewood.

Sea and sky intertwined, your hand and mine.

This promise, stubborn and resplendent

as that tuscan-tinged sunset, fawn

and tangerine fire, golden

and irrevocable--

its pewter cloak, moonlight.

December 30, 2017

Subic Bay