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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.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

LITTLE SHADOWS AT SUNDOWN


 
 
LITTLE SHADOWS AT SUNDOWN

(For the Wee Ones at Sauble Beach)

 
There is where here is:
Do you hear the murmur
Of the seawaves laving this shore?
It is the whispered caress of a mother
Come upon her little ones’ romp
Among the sundown shadows.
Where the flushed horizon
Meets the sea, a father’s
Face gleams ruddy
With laughter’s heat
Still on his crinkled brow.

O, that this cacophony of sounds
Becomes the noise of a lifetime
This heart (from a distance)
Could hearken to, leap up to,
Velvety notes of a joie de vivre
That this place was built for,
Made of, remembered by:

Is this not, after all, the paradise
He thought was lost in time past
Visited now upon his dotage
When he hankers for joy,
A little life left while there is time?

The little shadows taunt the sea
To reach their limbs. Gleeful,
Their now surprised screams,
When touched at last, are drowned
By whimper of the ebbtide waves
That has turned to gentle laughter.
 

---ALBERT B. CASUGA

August 20, 2013, Mississauga

  


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