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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.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

A TWILIGHT BOULEVARD

 
 
A TWILIGHT BOULEVARD

Why can’t a man be like a tree? In smaller terms,
why can’t a man be like a leaf, or maybe a flower?

If he were this maple, watch how its green foliage...

quickly turns to a rainbow wall, a magic of fall.

If he were that dissembling leaf turned barn-red
from its primrose green fencing golden footpaths

with petals tied like yellow ribbons on a welcome
road, would he not make growing old a big party?

Why not a wash of pink on these fey petals then,
before they crinkle into the wrinkles of autumn?

There must be a celebration of virginal spring
that in the heat of summer reaches a crescendo

of blooming, of a flirting dance with the wind,
a delicate fandango to the rhythm of castanets!

Is that any way to age? It must be the only way.
It begins with the breaking of shoot from seed,

the lusty towering into that árbol de fuego, a bole
of flames, firetrees fencing out the drab cobbles

of a one-way street meandering through dread,
a fool’s boulevard of discarded days and dreams.

---ALBERT B. CASUGA



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