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Poems of Light 

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Something about Sunlight

 

 

Something about sunlight—

Slanting behind trees

Streaming into windows 

Glancing on walls 

Dappling the peeling paint

Glinting on the steel railings

Gilding the new buildings

Dancing in the dust eddies

As if calling out the name

Of everything it touches—

Reminds me 

Of some childhood afternoon 

When I was alone.

 

December 4, 1998

Shanty on a Lot Vacated by a Bank

 

 

As if overnight the universe decided

The mighty high-rise must return to dust.

At least it was a boardroom verdict dictated:

“In real estate we could no longer trust.”

 

And so it came to pass, Ortigas was

Minus one tower, and in its place a hole

In the sky: “Ghost of the house of Midas—

Money’s end leaves a hole in our soul.”

 

But life goes on and more real was the pit

Left by the foundations: at its edge had sprung

Up the shack of the last worker who won’t quit

After the demolition. And so there it hung

 

By the lip of the swamp: ramshackle entity

Rising, reigning: Shanty Shanty Shantity

​

September 2, 2002

Things of Light

  

 

Lately I’ve been remembering things

Of light: Sundry shining things…

Coins, pebbles, marbles in a glass,

Fleeting glimpses of mottled mornings

On floorboards newly waxed,

April shower dripping on the poinsettia path,

Shafts piercing a maculate afternoon of acacias.

 

Clouds roil and rain stains the parchment

Sky of a dry season (thunder rolls 

Across the horizon), but the glinting discs 

Of lightning long remain in my recall,

Chasing me in my smog-blurred somnambulant

Noons, the moment glancing 

On the well-worn edges of my window sill.  

  

March 30, 1999

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Thai Dance

(After watching ‘The Chase of Benyaki’)

 

 

Lightest touch of

                          daintiest

                                            feet         

On smoothest teakwood,

 

Faintest rustle of silk—

                                      woven

Strands of light

                          worn next to the skin.

 

Fingers,

             toes

Curve

           ethereal,

 

Ching bells echo,

                           tinkling,

                                            infinitesimal,

                           within.

 

Eyes flutter, demure,

                                     defiant,

Disarming the mocking

                                        masque of daemons.

 

I sit here

In the waft of spice, coconut, mint,

Garlanded with rose and jasmine...

 

Seldom have I been given

This gift of magic—

 

This gift of Thailand

Fit for a king.

​

           

September 22, 1998

At the SEA Write Awards,

Bangkok, Thailand

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