(For Julian Ashley+, October 2, 1984-January 30, 1885)
It is the Sea eats limb so life (so love)/ may not to its eternal wanting finish/ what it late started must soon deny:/ a clown’s journey through a circle’s shadow. . .
Another fishing season would have gone
by sundown, but I have stopped counting
and stopped fishing, too; think of all the bass
that got away and the crayfish dried brittle
on rocks laved clean of seaweed and brine,
ebb tide marking rhythm and time when
breaking waves drown the homeward hallos
of fishermen pulling empty nets and ruined
mesh dragged off by catamarans whose relics
now jag brackish breakwater rocks when
low tide retrieves stray shells wrapped in flotsam.
It is my hammock hour. Come swing yourself
on this final refuge. Don’t take too long, hijo.
We have groupers to grill, oysters to chuck!
Echoes of your shrill shrieks and laughter startle
me still when I cock my ear to catch them
filling rooms and spaces that I would have shared
with you if you had only given me the chance
to teach you how to fish. But you left without
saying goodbye. At sundown, though,
on my hammock hour, I still hum your lullaby.
October 2, 2010, Mississauga
WRITER'S NOTEBOOK:
On October 2, Julian Ashley Casuga-Dela Rosa, my first grandchild, would have been 26, but he succumbed to sudden infant death syndrome four months after his birth.
I wrote an earlier poem marking his passing, "For the Grandson Who Did Not Choose to Stay". O, how we could have gone away fishing, had he stayed longer. Con amor duradero, hijo mio.
Another fishing season would have gone
by sundown, but I have stopped counting
and stopped fishing, too; think of all the bass
that got away and the crayfish dried brittle
on rocks laved clean of seaweed and brine,
ebb tide marking rhythm and time when
breaking waves drown the homeward hallos
of fishermen pulling empty nets and ruined
mesh dragged off by catamarans whose relics
now jag brackish breakwater rocks when
low tide retrieves stray shells wrapped in flotsam.
It is my hammock hour. Come swing yourself
on this final refuge. Don’t take too long, hijo.
We have groupers to grill, oysters to chuck!
Echoes of your shrill shrieks and laughter startle
me still when I cock my ear to catch them
filling rooms and spaces that I would have shared
with you if you had only given me the chance
to teach you how to fish. But you left without
saying goodbye. At sundown, though,
on my hammock hour, I still hum your lullaby.
October 2, 2010, Mississauga
WRITER'S NOTEBOOK:
On October 2, Julian Ashley Casuga-Dela Rosa, my first grandchild, would have been 26, but he succumbed to sudden infant death syndrome four months after his birth.
I wrote an earlier poem marking his passing, "For the Grandson Who Did Not Choose to Stay". O, how we could have gone away fishing, had he stayed longer. Con amor duradero, hijo mio.
A GAME OF PONTOONS
(For Mikey)
Mikey bested his cousins in the game of balancing on the lily pads (mock pontoons) while crossing the pool without falling into the water before he gets to the last pontoon. This ancient mariner, bedazzled by his grandchildren’s confidence and derring-do, failed to even get past the first pontoon despite their egging him on: Come on, ‘lolo! You can do it! Just do it! --- Writer's Notebook on a Family Break at Great Wolf Lodge, Niagara
He leap-frogged lithely
with tentative grace
from one drifting lily pad
to the other, an uncertain smile
creased on his elfin face:
quite like relishing
the exquisite danger
of leaping from one life
moment to another
shorn of anxiety or fear
a fall could end it all.
Would the pontoons hold
while he teeters on them
grasping for absent branches?
His final leap was also
this old heart’s leap of faith
that this lad’s leap-frogging
will end in a crash of pool
where ripples are his balm
and sinking is his baptism
of fire in a game called living
where bridges crumble
with the tottering pontoons.
Mississauga, September 15, 2010
(For Mikey)
Mikey bested his cousins in the game of balancing on the lily pads (mock pontoons) while crossing the pool without falling into the water before he gets to the last pontoon. This ancient mariner, bedazzled by his grandchildren’s confidence and derring-do, failed to even get past the first pontoon despite their egging him on: Come on, ‘lolo! You can do it! Just do it! --- Writer's Notebook on a Family Break at Great Wolf Lodge, Niagara
He leap-frogged lithely
with tentative grace
from one drifting lily pad
to the other, an uncertain smile
creased on his elfin face:
quite like relishing
the exquisite danger
of leaping from one life
moment to another
shorn of anxiety or fear
a fall could end it all.
Would the pontoons hold
while he teeters on them
grasping for absent branches?
His final leap was also
this old heart’s leap of faith
that this lad’s leap-frogging
will end in a crash of pool
where ripples are his balm
and sinking is his baptism
of fire in a game called living
where bridges crumble
with the tottering pontoons.
Mississauga, September 15, 2010
RAIN ON THE TRAIL
There is a scampering of grace/In the dry woods/ And a pulse upon some soliloquy: / It is the rain come as a lace/ Smooth and forbidding upon the cup/ Of the dead and dying weather!--- “Fugue in Narra’s Rain”, Narra Poems and Others, 1968
Something about running naked in the rain
recalls some lost decades withered now in
a fading trail hallooing with surprised laughter
tickled out of our backs by sudden pellets of rain.
The river! The river! Chanted my little lass
Skipping to the tempo of scampering rain:
Let’s swim there, abuelo! Let’s dance in the river!
Brown and slithering over scraped-clean rocks,
the river meanders sans snails, eels, or crayfish,
Now emptied of carp, catfish, small-mouth bass.
O, how we could have raucously scared the wren
with catcalls while mounting a wading caribou,
but those were noises of our lost years when
naked lads swam with dung and water buffalo.
We can’t swim here, hija mia, City Hall says clean
rivers are for clean table fish. We do have our rain.
August 22, 2010, Mississauga
LULLABY
Rock-a-bye, baby, on the treetop,/ When the wind blows, the cradle will rock;/When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall/ And down will come baby, cradle, and all! --- Lullaby
1.
Close your eyes and fairy lights will lead you
Away from the dark and gloom that scare you:
In your dreams, do you run through brackish snow?
Climb leafless trees or swing from a broken bough?
Where the river bends, do you gather rotting fish,
Glean carrion snagged in a summer’s fishing mesh?
Has the snowman’s head fallen off its melting body?
Its stick hands twisted like pretzels. Arrows really.
The carrot nose has become its stabbing tooth,
Where both eyes were, now Cyclops orb is left
On a conehead of dripping snow; a crushed face
Stares blankly at a mid-day sun whose lapping rays
Forebode another season for yet another reason
To accept that what lives is also ripe for destruction.
(O, my aching heart, it aches, it hurts,
It hurts badly, it hurts to the core.
Kindly spare me your gentle nurture,
For I dread death’s coming spectre.)*
2.
Close your eyes and let the wind rip through
Tears and cracks and cranny and broken doors, too.
Grip the tightened string on your wayward kite,
No wind could wreck nor snap it loose from flight.
You will ride the wind, my boy, and touch the sun,
Though frightful prayers plead that you must run
From the dreams that have become nightmares,
From the fallen kites; run from the fearsome snares.
Life is a trap, much like the burlap waiting downstream,
When you get there, you are enmeshed -- do not scream.
It is too late to scream. Close your eyes, shut them tight.
Life is not a waking dream. You have just begun to fight.
(O, my aching heart, it aches, it hurts,
It hurts badly, it hurts to the core.
Kindly spare me your gentle nurture,
For I dread death’s coming spectre.)*
____________
* Annnay, pusok, annay, annay,
Nasaem, naut-ut la unay.
Itdem kaniak ta pannaranay
Ta kaasiak a maidasay.
--- Duay-ya: Dungdungwen Kanto (A Lullaby of Love), Ilocano Lullaby Refrain
Mississauga, March 3, 2010
A BALLERINA ON THE WINDOW
(For my ballerinas: Chloe, Sydney, and Taylor)
“Adios, adios, abuelo. Te amo. Je T’aime! Mahal Kita! Luv ya!”
---- Chloe speaking in tongues.
A glimmer of a sylph on the gossamer bay,
She pirouettes and is gone into her chrysalis
Not unlike the sylvan truants that waylay
The wary wanderer among the trees,
Or the papillon flitting from blossom to bramble,
Hidden but always there, some surprise grace,
A magical fairy light to dispel the creeping pall
Coiled on the winter ennui of fallen days ---
O, she dandles dearly with her ragged ragdoll,
Caressingly delicate in a wistful pas de deux
Of her shadow Fonteyn caught in a sudden fall
By a prancing Baryshnikov vaulting off the shadow.
Was that his pas de chat to snatch her from disaster?
Quickly now, urgently now, hold the hapless Dame
As would a cat curl on the legs of its Master,
Dream now of a demure pas de bourree of fame,
While dreams still enthrall, while the dancing
Is still your language of love, of boundless courage,
While the arguments of your young body moving
To the beats of passion are still the true language
Of the good, the honest, and the beautiful:
Until then, mon amour, these decrepit hands cannot
Stop the deluge of fear, of hurt, and of the frightful
That would drown us all, before our windows are shut.
Even now, as you wave from your window,
I know you will be brave.
(For my ballerinas: Chloe, Sydney, and Taylor)
“Adios, adios, abuelo. Te amo. Je T’aime! Mahal Kita! Luv ya!”
---- Chloe speaking in tongues.
A glimmer of a sylph on the gossamer bay,
She pirouettes and is gone into her chrysalis
Not unlike the sylvan truants that waylay
The wary wanderer among the trees,
Or the papillon flitting from blossom to bramble,
Hidden but always there, some surprise grace,
A magical fairy light to dispel the creeping pall
Coiled on the winter ennui of fallen days ---
O, she dandles dearly with her ragged ragdoll,
Caressingly delicate in a wistful pas de deux
Of her shadow Fonteyn caught in a sudden fall
By a prancing Baryshnikov vaulting off the shadow.
Was that his pas de chat to snatch her from disaster?
Quickly now, urgently now, hold the hapless Dame
As would a cat curl on the legs of its Master,
Dream now of a demure pas de bourree of fame,
While dreams still enthrall, while the dancing
Is still your language of love, of boundless courage,
While the arguments of your young body moving
To the beats of passion are still the true language
Of the good, the honest, and the beautiful:
Until then, mon amour, these decrepit hands cannot
Stop the deluge of fear, of hurt, and of the frightful
That would drown us all, before our windows are shut.
Even now, as you wave from your window,
I know you will be brave.
Mississauga, February 9, 2010
---ALBERT B. CASUGA
10-2-11 Mississauga
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