A Poem From Lina S. R. Poem by RIC BASTASA

He said, “Bug-at ang akong dughan.”
“I wear a heavy heart.'

Does grief really cling like a legion of bats on the cavewalls of his memory?

On the drooping branches that are his shoulders,
would the crow of betrayal perch?
Is there space enough to build, slowly, its nest?

He uttered, 'natandog ko, '
“I am moved.”
and I told him I do not hold him responsible for my own desires.

On that day I dropped by to visit, I suddenly saw
That he was no longer with me even as he sat
In front of me at the dining table; he had migrated,
Riding on the steeled wings of longing towards far Germany
Near the spires of the Cologne Cathedral where his beloved dwells.

While I waited for his return, I sought refuge in the mild
Aroma of coffee, the beans of which came from Guatemala.
At dawn, he had roasted and ground these beans and mixed a brew
That became the dark ecstasy that he poured into my cup.

My vast powers had turned to cinders. I fled away from his kindness.
The only baggage I carried is this heavy weight of aching to touch flesh.

Here I am now a bakwit, like the widows whose husbands
are warriors in this long and undeclared war.
They whose stories he listened to and whose portraits he limned in Mamasapano.
Like the mudfish that was caught in the Liguasan Marsh
That he hung on the laundry line so that its flesh will dry
completely in the crawling fierce heat of the sun.