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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, July 28, 2014

WEANING SONGS


 
 
WEANING SONGS

 

1.  An Uncertain Quiet

 

They will discover strength on their wings,
and, soon enough, they will find the sky,
and they will abandon these nests to fly
wherever their questions bring them.
However wild they are, they will ask them:
How far is the sun from this burnt branch?
Soon enough, even their needy nesting sound
will give way to breast-beating flutter of wings,
and they will be gone with the strangest wind
that scoops them off from an unsteady home
of inadvertent chances, and catch-as-catch can.
Icarus-like, they must test their flaccid wings

against the sinews of a wild summer wind. O.
Is this uncertain quiet an augury of mourning?



2. Her Vigil


It will not cease, nor will the smell of grass
supplant the scent of brine from this sea,
this angst from absence that was not worth it.
I must keep their plates on the table.  Keep vigil.
They will come home, even as hints of shadows.
I must keep their beds warm, however cold they
left them. They will come back from the storm.
It will soon be over before they know it. I know.


---ALBERT B. CASUGA

Revised, July 28, 2014, Mississauga

 

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