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Thunderstorm, Philippine Star file

Cloudburst

1

You know it’s end of season

When dusk falls at noon,

The sky squints and the clouds

Cast their shadows in mezzotint.

The streets choke with traffic, 

As usual, but the spectral light

Leaps like St. Elmo’s in the swamp

Mist of soot and exhaust. But

Your thoughts are of another

Summer, among cogon and acacia

And cadena de amor, beyond

The patio of the hilltop church,

Where boys of eight or ten stretch

Their slingshots against rice bird 

Or lizard, and the cloudburst scares

The quarry into flight or hole…

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2

And all is unfinished: the light,

Tearing the noon sky, leaves

The shot in mid-stretch: no

Stone is released and neither memory

Nor season ends, but all is 

A ceaseless stretching of time

Where names echo, summoned

For the family gathering at Angelus,

Or called out in a game of hide-and-seek,

Where no catcall or finger-whistle answers

From the bushes, and no name or face

Comes back from the secret hiding places…

 

3

Only the monsoon returns

As the sky tears open, as if its torrents

Could wash the city of its grime and soot

And all vestiges of dry seasons lost.

 

 

Marne Kilates

June 7, 2004; Rev. October 2021

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