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If you want to find God, you can go by rail
or catch a jeepney, repaired a thousand times
and driven by a madman with a rosary on the mirror.
Tell him you seek the Divine and be certain

that he does not misconstrue your meaning.
You go down General Luna street to the place
where the Moon and Mars both must bow
to the great glittering of the Creator's face.

When you arrive, look for the Indian Laurel tree
where a crow has come down the backbone
of the Sierra Madre to wait here for you.
He knows you have lost much, your child, your home.

The Sierra Madre crow can offer only baubles,
still-warm bits of pan desal bread, and his wise mein.
He is here, like the church of San Agustin,
as mournful as the Christ, as wounded, as kind.

Go inside, where adobe bricks contain time itself,
and the Spanish artifacts reconcile gold with rust.
There you will find Dibella, Alberoni, majesty and peace.
Outside, the kind crow, the Philippine sky, the laurel trees.
2024
 Aug 29 Louise
F Elliott

It was not the beast alone
that hollowed the soul,
but the silence
that made a chamber for it.

The silence of fathers
who looked away.
The silence of mothers
who smoothed the tablecloth
and spoke of other things.
The silence of friends
who chose comfort
over confrontation.

Every unspoken word
became a shroud.
Every careful pause
became a nail.
Every smile that denied
became another grave.

The beast feasted,
not only on wounds inflicted,
but on truths unspoken,
on the complicity
of quiet mouths.

And so silence
killed more surely than rage,
for rage at least
named what was broken,

but silence gave it a home.

The deadliest weapon
that lays in the hands
    of Death  itself
    is not the sword;

but the silence sharpened
     against the soul.



What destroys us most often is not what is done, but what is left unsaid. Families, friends, communities.. complicity thrives in silence. Every unspoken truth becomes a stone, every quiet denial a grave. This piece speaks to the deadliest accomplice of the beast: not hatred, but silence.

And yet, even within silence, the cry still trembles. It leaks through scars, through hidden eyes, through the fragile flame that refuses to die.
These words are for every soul who has lived inside that chamber, unseen but not alone.
Plumb gives voice to that cry.

What if the “cut” is not a blade at all, but truth itself--
naming the wound, naming the perpetrator,
breaking the silence that becomes a second trauma
worse than the first?
Sharp though it is, such a cut
can become the only one that heals--
the deepest relief of all...


"Cut"

I'm not a stranger
No I am yours
With crippled anger
And tears that still drip sore

A fragile flame aged
With misery
And when our eyes meet
I know you see

I may seem crazy
Or painfully shy
And these scars
wouldn't be so hidden
If you would just
look me in the eye

I feel alone here and cold here
Though I don't want to die
But the only anesthetic that
makes me feel anything kills inside

I do not want to be afraid
I do not want to die inside
  just to breathe in
I'm tired of feeling so numb

Relief exists,   I find it when

    I am cut

https://youtu.be/OJkqkWIpFAI?si=hMaAlmoUB_OnEoOG


Better the wound of truth than the grave of silence;

To those who have carried the weight of numbness,
Plumb’s voice  becomes
their own cry of solidarity

xoxo
I’ll meet you again
Somewhere between now and then
When the marigolds have long died
Where tears have finally dried
How long, we won’t know
For we must wait to reap what we sow
Cobwebs and dust will cover each shelf
No longer will I be myself
Between life and death
I must find you before my final breath
Through soil and stone
Nothing matches the love you’ve shown
Please don't forget about me
Soon, together we shall be
I’ll meet you again
Someday, somewhere between now and then.
 May 19 Louise
Rose
I Will Wait
 May 19 Louise
Rose
if roots can wait,
beneath the earth,
for a rain they cannot live without.

and if the stars wait,
lingering in dusk,
just to see the moon once more.

then i,
full of burning ache,
can wait too.

I will wait for you.
I'd wait for him in every lifetime
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