Paglaho

A Piece Of The Storm
Mark Strand

For Sharon Horvath

From the shadow of domes in the city of domes,
A snowflake, a blizzard of one, weightless, entered your room
And made its way to the arm of the chair where you, looking up
From your book, saw it the moment it landed.
That's all There was to it. No more than a solemn waking
To brevity, to the lifting and falling away of attention, swiftly,
A time between times, a flowerless funeral. No more than that
Except for the feeling that this piece of the storm,
Which turned into nothing before your eyes, would come back,
That someone years hence, sitting as you are now, might say:
"It's time. The air is ready. The sky has an opening."

Sabi ni Moreen

masidhi raw 'yung kasiyahan ko ngayon. Gano'n na nga siguro. Kahit ngayon lang magiging un-apologetic muna ako. Saka ko na titignan sa hinaharap kung mag-a-apologize nga ako. Ang totoo: sana masaya ka rin.

nanggaling kay Martin Villanueva ang unang mga salita sa tulang ito. Nag-rengga kami noon at isinulat niya, 'I reach for your hand and believe in contact.' Martin, panakaw na muna. :)


Poem written after reclining on the grass with a lover

I reach for your hand and put my faith
in contact and the many pinholes

that allow it. I believe in movement
and the consequences of movement.

Dry current coursing through meadows.
Tall grass falling on each other. "Waves,"

you say "are not owned by the sea."
A leaf rests on your shoulder and I

remember Nothing Lasts Forever
inked on a handrail of an escalator.

A leaf falls and I remember rivers
of people funneled by train doors.

“When did it become this hard to get home?”
a passenger stops and sighs and I continue

to read a poem and believe in its power
to break a heart, turn it into sunset,

let the dusk flow through our veins.
I believe that moments could fail

to reveal themselves. I believe we could
stay a little longer in this time of trees

and quiet and spaces that settle between us -
holding each other’s hand, feeling our own.