two of my favorite poems
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THE GIFT OF NAMING
Plunging
into the deep sea,
my body dissolves in
still blue—
I find no longer “fish”
but silvery schools of fusilier,
that lonely grouper in a cave, a pair of
butterflyfish darting
between branches of Acropora.
Seagrass is now
a meadow of spoon-shaped Halophila
and beds of Thalassia feeding
pufferfish and nudibranch.
Linnaeus only carried on
what Adam knew needed doing.
Not a matter of discovering;
rather, a rite of knowing.
As fishermen weave nets of names to live
--crab, kasag, lambay,
alimango, alimasag--
one sees only what one seeks to know.
When I love, this is where I must begin:
beloved, tell me my name.
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photo taken in Moalboal in Cebu, a bucket of freshly caught lapu-lapu, as i was talking a fisherman i met on the beach one morning
FIRE TREES(click title for photo)
You love me with eyes
warmer than these flaming trees.
In the orange heat
of the setting sun,
the chirp of crickets,
a flutter of wings
join the sounds of summer’s end.
Leaves, browned and dry
as earth, are breaking away
from their branches,
like the sound of notepaper
folded impatiently
into boats;
a clock in the kitchen
ticks the hours till they set sail.
And the world glides slowly by.
Only the fire trees
are perfectly still
this late afternoon,
bare branches stretched out
against a darkening sky.
Teach me, Lord, to love you
with the silence of fire trees
waiting for rain.
I'm glad to be the first to go crazy about these poems here in multiply! Goodness, so I already love your "heaven" and "silence" to death... and now these two! I think I like the Gift of Naming better, though. Somehow, it speaks so much of your own passion. It has some elements of figurative surprise. The play of Linnaeus and Adam s brilliant. It lands flawlessly to the point in the end. So Biblical too, you know... reminds me of Moses asking God, "Who should I say sent me? (What is Your Name?)" Fire Trees reminds me of Ateneo; I miss the firetrees there so much that I asked my mom to plant firetrees in our garden! The words in your poems are so carefully chosen.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I am reading Good Poems, a book of poems collected by Garrison Keillor - from Yeates, RL Stevenson and Robert Frost to contemporary like TS Kerrigan and Anne Sexton. I do believe your works should be there. If you are posting this to move your spirit (maybe?), you might want to know that you and your poetry really moved my spirit into attempting to write poems. Your poems have been sources of spiritual refreshment for me. I am your number 1 fan! Or maybe, it's between me and your mom. =)
Go girl, write!
hehe =) actually FIRE TREES IS an ateneo poem. it's really inspired by all the summers i spent in ateneo, when i would pass by the blooming fire trees every day as i went to and from class in the heat and humidity. i wrote this poem as a prayer for our dean's awards ceremony.
ReplyDeleteYou write very beautifully. Your poem's imagery is very vivid. :)
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