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Two Poems Written "Near Lake Taal..."

Near Lake Taal in December

 

 

This angry cold seizes my heart

Roots me down to this ground of night

Lashing me still with its twines of chill

 

With a distant keening it shakes

Its icy intimations from the stalks

Of grasses, the dust-dry limbs

 

Of bushes edging the paths

Seeking their dark reaches, whipping

Bits of earth into its slow eddies

 

The lake, unseen realm spread below

The land's brink, sends its plumes

Of shadow curling across the rim of its

 

Faint, shimmering presence

  

(rev. December 24, 2014)

BgyBañadero.jpg

Near Lake Taal in May

 

 

At Maria Paz, the farthest outpost

Of Tanuan, we lurched and teetered

At the rim of the Lake and stared

 

Through the lambent air in the well

Of Taal and marvelled at the steep

Slope plunging into the water.

 

Further down, it was said, where our

Vertigo wouldn’t take us, the slope

Went on where the lake joined the sea

 

Until in later times the volcano 

Plugged the passage (and the salt-

Water sardines became tawilis,

 

The only freshwater kind, it seemed).

Below us, on the lake shore, they were

Holding a regatta for the fiesta (we saw

 

Only the tips of sails and buntings

Waving) and a Dragon Boat race

Had just ended. Across from us,

 

Above the shimmering water,

The square meshes of the radar

Array were diminutive on the arȇte

 

And we imagined the weekend

Also ending for the picnickers.  

We took a dozen photos of the sunset 

 

Until all the colors faded and the fireworks

Burst and lit the night and more than

Stars sparkled on Tagaytay Ridge.

 

 

May 28, 2015; Rev. Jan. 21, 2020

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