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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.

Monday, June 30, 2014

AM HERE: AN EPITAPH


 


AN EPITAPH: AM HERE


Am here where nothing is everything,

where the still point of our exploration
is exploring beginnings turned into navel
gazing, a standing still on the tip of light.

                      Where am I?


Am here where mornings crack into a shiver
of twilights breaking into days and nights,
songs and echoes --- whimpers of regret
or frenzied halloing achieved after couplings
of living and dying, of starting and ending,
of suns and shadows. Endings begin here.

Am in a circle at last where the hole
defines life’s next of kin. The hole is a circle.
I have come. Am here where I am going.
Been here before. But is anybody home?
 

--- ALBERT B. CASUGA
Revised, June 30, 2014



From the Author’s Notebook:

In his "Life and Death: The Burden of Proof", Deepak Chopra defines zero point: "At the moment of death the ingredients of your old body and old identity disappear... You do not acquire a new soul, because the soul doesn't have content. It's not "you" but the center around which "you" coalesces, time after time. It's your zero point."

What happens if the "center" does not hold? Will life and death still come from the same fibre? Will dying still be needed to extend the energy of living? Nothing is everything here.

"...The zero point provides the starting point from which everything in the universe springs. Since matter and energy are constantly emerging and then vanishing back into the void, the zero point serves as the switching station between existence and nothingness."

Chopra invokes the principles of physics to locate this point as he postulates that life and death are from the same stream. He quotes Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita: "Folding back in on myself, I create again and again."

One does not die, therefore. One continues the journey. The homo viator cannot come home again.

If he must come home, is there anybody there to come home to?

It is questions like this that authors like Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) exploit. Some of his fellow atheists have purchased ads in trams and transits to coyly admonish: "There probably is no God; go out and enjoy yourself tonight!" The critical word is "probably". They sound unsure about their certainty.

Because we have yet no certain way of knowing, we will maintain silence in our beds.

 

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