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ALBERT B. CASUGA, a Philippine-born writer, lives in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, where he continues to write poetry, fiction, and criticism after his retirement from teaching and serving as an elected member of his region's school board. He was nominated to the Mississauga Arts Council Literary Awards in 2007. A graduate of the Royal and Pontifical University of St. Thomas (now University of Santo Tomas, Manila. Literature and English, magna cum laude), he taught English and Literature (Criticism, Theory, and Creative Writing) at the Philippines' De La Salle University and San Beda College. He has authored books of poetry, short stories, literary theory and criticism. He has won awards for his works in Canada, the U.S.A., and the Philippines. His latest work, A Theory of Echoes and Other Poems was published February 2009 by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. His fiction and poetry were published by online literary journals Asia Writes and Coastal Poems recently. He was a Fellow at the 1972 Silliman University Writers Workshop, Philippines. As a journalist, he worked with the United Press International and wrote an art column for the defunct Philippines Herald.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

A LAMENT AT DAWN


A LAMENT AT DAWN
Strange how sounds start a day:
one sees a salmon sky, hears a doe
cough, and I am sure the gulped
swig of coffee triggers a gargled rush
to talk to the birds before rain drowns
their canticles, before the staccato
of raindrops on the porch roof
could transform all these dawn
sounds into a flat diminuendo
that could drone on until sundown.
But for these dawns, I know I cannot
invest any more time to understand
how this grandeur could lull souls
into reverential stupor while somewhere
else across the valley some sky is crimson,
a doe is charred venison, and warblers
fall one by quivering one into the forest
fire flinted by campers in dry Arizona.
O, that I could hold this heart ransom
for the truest and deepest things we wake
up for on mornings we’d wish we had not
risen to meet the same cold faces that we meet,
when the dying of sounds end a dry dead day!
—Albert B. Casuga
06-07-11
Poetic Prompt: The dawn sky turns salmon. Down by the stream, the hollow cough of a deer. A swig of coffee and I’m off to count birds before the rain. ---Dave Bonta, The Morning Porch, 06-07-11

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