Poetry&Stuffby
MARNE KILATES
MARNE
S
KRIPTS
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
Sapatero
The Cobbler's Shop, Terry Rowe
No one could handle better,
In the old hometown, in my own
Memory, Tiyong Bencio’s ardabis.
No one, not any of his children,
His assistants or apprentices,
At his small cobbler’s shop
On the balcon of his house,
On the road going to market,
At the back of Cine Madrid.
Everyone who needed mending
Brought their pumps or chukkas
To the sapatero’s that faced
The foot of the hill where the road
Rose on the way to the hilltop church.
If I bought a few bundles of firewood
At market, or ran a quick errand
As mother cooked the noon meal,
I would pass Tiyong Bencio, intent
Over his job, wielding the awls and
Hooked needles, closing cracked
Leather or gaping sole, sewing with
Waxed thread in close saddle stitch.
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It would take long before I had my own
Shoes to make use of his services―
And that would be when I set foot
In college: maybe to repurpose
An uncle’s worn out pair to go
Decently with my gray pants
School uniform. Tiyong Bencio
Was the sole go-to. That was before
We discovered rubber sneakers.
But when I could buy my own pair,
It was the last I saw of Tiyong Bencio’s.
I had no longer use for repair.
Now my memory gives him praise:
I can picture him bowed over a shoe
Resting on his knee or slipped onto
A last, unspeaking in his trademark
Hoarse grunt but threading and looping
With infinite patience his awls
And needles, in his busy balcon,
Which everyone knew as Ben’s Shoe Repair,
Where no one could better handle his
Glinting ardabis. as I now murmur
In homage, Tiyong Bencio, you were da bes!
Marne Kilates
5 October 2021
NOTE:
Ardabis. Curved leather cutting knife.
Last. Shoe last. A wooden mold shaped like a foot, mounted on a stand.
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