TWO MEN IN MY LIFE*

ARTISAN BY DAY

For Lolo Jose  (Don Jose Buenaventura+)

I would look at your fingers, abuelo, if you

were here crouched by my easel, my paint,

my oil, my bastidores. They are my fingers. 

We hardly knew you, save that illustrados

from the city would look for you if they

needed the latest design in haberdashery. 

Don Jose, make my shoulders look broad,

Don Jose, I need to appear commanding;

Don Jose, please look away from my wife. 

Swarthy as your Basque roots, your eyes

blaze beyond your gaze; an artisan by day,

an artist and lover, abuelo de mis sueños.

COIN RACES

For Lolo Candro (Don Alejandro F. Casuga+)

Calling it a day at the old Mercado,

do you remember me running to you

snivelling at the tail end of every race? 

Kin of all sizes and wile would beat me

to all the coins in your trouser pockets

where you kept them as gold for the best, 

really, the most agile and the fastest

hands, the greedy and the needy, but you

said you knew I was simply the slowest. 

So you had the small pesetas for them,

but you always saved the peso de plata

for me near your heart: your chestpockets. 

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA

11-02-11

*Culled from "Poesias Para Los Muertos" posted 11-01-11 to higlight two great influences on my art and my other life as a politician and academic: my maternal grandfather, Jose Buenaventura, and paternal grandfather, Alejandro F. Casuga. The etches are how I remember them in my mind's eye.