The Return

Edith L. Tiempo
If the dead years could shake their skinny legs and run
As once he had circled this house in thirty counts,
he would go thru this door among those old friends and they would not shun
Him and the tales he would tell, tales that would
bear more than the spare
Testimony of willed wit and his grey hairs.

And he would live in the whispers and locked heads.

Wheeling around and around turning back was where he started:
The turn to the pasture, a swift streak under a boy’s running;
The swing, up a few times and he had all the earth he wanted;
The tower trees, and not so tall as he had
imagined;

The rocking chair on the porch, you pushed it and it started rocking,
Rocking, and abruptly stopped. He, too, stopped in the doorway, chagrined.
He would go among them but he would not tell, he could be smart,
He, an old man cracking the bones of his embarrassment apart.

Man of Earth
By Amador T. Daguio
Pliant is the bamboo;
I am man of earth.
They say that from the bamboo
We had our first birth.

Am I of the body,
Or of the green leaf?
Do I have to whisper
My every sin and grief?

If the wind passes by,

Must I stoop, and try
To measure fully
My flexibility?

I might have been the bamboo,

But I will be a man.
Bend me then, O Lord,
Bend me if you can.

A Textula
By Frank Rivera
Merong himala, hindi totoong wala
Ituro ma’y mali, alam nati’y tama
Kahit walang sagot itong panalangin
Hindi tumitigil ang ating paghiling.

Walang nagturo na tayo’y makibaka

Ngunit sulirani’y ating binabata
Kahit may pangakong laging napapako
Sa anumang init, handa ring mapaso.

Sa ating puso’y may awit ng pag-asa

Kahit titik nito’y hindi makabisa
Ang katotohana’y lalaging totoo
Basta maniwalang mayroong milagro.

(Reproduced by permission of Frank Rivera)