ALBERT B. CASUGA: DESIDERATUM

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

DESIDERATUM

DESIDERATUM

...They pose, / then fall, purposefully, / yelping WOOO!, which translates / as A little fear is fun. / The pool looks / too shallow to hold them, / but they plunge in and resurface, / grimacing to show how cold the water is. ---From “Resemblance” by Hannah Stephenson, The Storialist, 8-16-11

How little of fear is fun? How much of fun is fear?

Intensities of either define staying on with courage,

Some grace under pressure, if there were no choice.

But there is. Yet, you probably screamed your pain

away by claiming you did not choose to be born

when struggle became a burden and living a chore.

Does your mother still cap birthdays with the story?

The one about how fearful she felt that giving birth

was not going to be fun, until she heard you yell

your tiny heart out, trembling for air, screaming

as early as then: This is not fun, you know. Being

pushed or pulled even before you got your bearings.

Would you have understood what in great blazes

everyone was happy for? Or was that a grimace on

Father’s face to counterpoint the smile on Mother’s?

Before long, we forget the fun that was earned

to vanquish the fear marked on all things mortal:

a day after birth, we start the art of dying. Living?

Why should it be delirious to be riotously happy?

How much of fear is fun? How much of fun is fear?

If there were no life hereafter, would you even ask?

---Albert B. Casuga

08-16-11

1 comment:

Hannah StephensonAugust 17, 2011 at 8:58 PM
That opening line...How little of fear is fun? How much of fun is fear?

Excellent questions.
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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.