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| NAYA VALDELLON |
| Elegy For Randy Diaz |
| 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 |
| Imagine the chuckles
stifled between sentences before the proper gasp of dismay. How gracelessly any of us could go, with an unplanned plunge into a watershed. See the santol left unplucked on the neighbors’ tree, as his friend clambered down to run for help. Beyond rescue, what could he have prayed for, going down the drain at nineteen? To be famous for an accident, to be a household name invoked by yayas to haunt petulant wards? Still missing, said TV reporters, as if it was just a matter of being discovered. Consider the mothers, buying bottles of water, knowing frogmen were diving for drowned remains; no amount of boiling or crossing could make that tapwater holy enough. Anti-sacramental he became, as if his finger could easily emerge from the faucet to curse toothbrushes. Salvation would come one week later, longer than it takes most resurrections. That pressure could blow any body to pieces, police mentioned. An explanation for portions of his person found jammed in a pipeline barangays away. When parents flounder for reasons, children know the words lodged in their throats have something to do with luck, the intricacies of what befall us or what we fall into. What’s kept hanging is the fruit of oblivion. Knowing what it takes to be remembered, we fly, leaving so little time for mourning. This poem is part of the collection that won First Prize for Poetry in the 2004 Palanca Awards |