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| R. TORRES PANDAN |
| Even after Reading the Poets of the Higher Latitudes |
| THE AUTHOR HOLDS THE COPYRIGHT TO THIS POEM. THIS IS POSTED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR. |
| THIS IS PART OF THE LITERATURA READING SERIES | CLICK HERE TO GO BACK TO LITERATURA |
| Autumn holds no memory for me (not even when I wear its far-off gasp in June). No late birds sing upon boughs that never break in winter. No spring in these legs where no spring flutters in from unspent sun of winter, fresh as a stream won’t flow from a cold heart to lovely things forever being thawed by sun. I will scuttle grass instead and skulk back to summer in my winterless country, light to chafe my heart and scar my head so I have to scamper under a battered straw hat for shade. After warm nights, just enough rain to whistle through wafted hair and the dull patter that freezes my footfall, and then, this ache to take a step back and wait. And so I wait! This poem is part of the collection that won Third Prize for Poetry in the 2006 Palanca Awards |