ALBERT B. CASUGA: THE PANTOMIME

Saturday, July 16, 2011

THE PANTOMIME

THE PANTOMIME

A wren’s pantomime on the brittle branch
is so much like presiding over life down here.

Shape up, toe the line, be civilized, connect,
or run the risk of being cut down to size.

Why can one not remain alone, a wood hermit
or an anarchist maybe? Why join a lumpen lot?

From its perch, the wren swipes its bill back
and forth on a dead limb sharpening for a kill.

A hog sneezes, betrays its refuge, quivers back
into its hole. Too late. It has joined the pack.

In this part of the woods, beaks are scimitars
to keep the venturous lumped in their holes.

—Albert B. Casuga
07-16-11

Prompt: A Carolina wren swipes its bill back and forth on the end of a dead limb, as if sharpening a knife. A groundhog sneezes in the strong sun.---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 07-16-11

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The Blogger's Books

Summer Suns (short story collection with Cirilo F. Bautista, Manila, UST Press, 1962); Narra Poems and Others (poetry collection, San Beda College Publications, Manila, 1968); Still Points (poetry collection, Flores & Associates, Manila, 1972); In a Sparrow's Time (poetry collection, Infocom, Canada, 1990); Songs For My Children (poetry collection, Infocom, Canada, 1996); The Aesthetics of Literature (Literary Theory and Criticism, De La Salle University, Manila, 1972); Editor: Man in Search of Meaning: Literature (Humanities Series, Asia Foundation & DLSU Textbook Committee, Manila, 1970); Man and His Literary Past: The Classical Tradition (Asia Foundation & DLSU Textbook Committee, Manila, 1971); A Theory of Echoes and Other Poems (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, Manila, 2009). The author's prose and poetry are anthologized in books published in the Philippines, Canada, United States, Australia, and Indonesia.