My Filipina

Jhoe glides through high grass toward the sound of rushing waters, her bare feet balance on flat, jagged rocks then defly pulling cool water from the mountain stream.

(pangangarap na ito)

In what kind hand could she carry that light and wistful music without breaking tears of past regret, this young woman, my filipina?

(pangangarap na ito)

I can breathe only enough to take in the sinister pang of her acrylic sweet indirectness.

How indecisive the plunge into a muddled war to abdicate this enveloping, violent, malignant slide to reverence.

If I reach for her as an ambivalent stickman thrust onto a sheet of ice, am I destined to fall and laugh in anguish. Surely, as kindling to fire.

Someday I will grow thorns and branches like a wild scratching forest to compromise your meandering path!

Poetry is a dream dictated by letters.