Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot Poems

When I was young, you’d hold my hand
We’d swim the seas, explore the land
When ghouls and trolls would visit me
I’d call your name and they would flee
...

Love expressed in stones
Of assorted colors
The sea-green jade
The blue chevron beads
...

If Kabunian gave you a land of milk and honey
and ordered you to take care of it for posterity
What will you do if intruders want to take
it away?
...

The lights would not blink in the household of his class
Dreams were forbidden, slums plunged in deep shadow
The wide farmlands where staple corn and rice should grow
Were pools of blood from martyrs now and of time past
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On this day, we remember the women and men
All too aware that death was their destiny certain
When in darkness and doom they scattered flames
A big number without faces, many without names
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(for James Balao)

I keep looking toward an open door
...

(For Fred as He Dreams on the Foot of the Alps)

He is mine in opaque spaces
unexplored by the public eye
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I was always trapped in the center
like the rusty fulcrum of the see-saw,
never way up, never way down
'The rule is not to argue against them
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Do not go there, my child; your train must not arrive
Nature has intended that mine should come ahead
Come back, my child, come back, your thick baggage unpack
You must work on the seams begun with your fine dreams
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I told you often. Long ago I learned
Distance is not measured by the meters
Of space from one estate to another
Rather by the height of the fence
...