So should a seed
does grow must leave
its home:

Earthly walls,
empty shells
he covers himself with.

In nakedness
must Adam gather up
sewn up leaves.

While surrendering
into the dark
and foreboding earth:

Miles wide and miles deep.
Alone, into the sweltering
and blistering heat of the sun.

Armed with but
a leaf for Mercy!
cries his clothelessness to the wind.

So must a flood pass
once, twice, over and endure
in callousness and tenderness.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / August 5, 2014 - Bulacan)

She visits us every time
The building needs repainting
And every time she visits us
We ask her:

“When will you be back?”

You say you will only be
A jeepney ride away.

We sing; the choral chimes with the wind.
Dry leaves always settle down
Where the wind stops.
Only it does not. But, it settles, and always
Wherever the wind leads them to grow

Apart.

Maybe that’s the purpose of apartments.
Always seeming to leave, to stay only
For sleep, not rest.

We kept talking every time
How our phones ring each other.
You answer questions, always you do so
Not with a no, it was difficult for you;
Nor a yes; but always you say:

“I’m right here”

“5 minutes”

passing through regular public commute;
you are always nearby,
always stuck in heavy traffic.
I can even see you every time,
Always there,
And always smiling.

The last time we smiled together
You told us:

“I am always here – a whisper away”

Only you are there

Not here.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / July 25 2013 - Parañaque)

Last night
you breathed on me.

The grass
reminded me
of the faint color of the sun
on your skin.

I remember,
how we treaded lightly
on folded grass;
a reminder
of how we stayed behind
for each other.

"Like friends"
We would say together.

How our own weight
carried
our sentences
to each other
almost touching.

For T. S.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / June 8, 2011 - Parañaque)

From the far cry of a hawk caught in mid-flight
Recalls a voice of awakening:
Your dreams of flight hover in the distance,
The ever so distant call of the sun-eagle.
The ripples of golden waves,
Mounds and mounds of it piled up.
All these add up to your helplessness.

Do clouds always move with such impassioned grace?

At nighttime, he dreams of flight. It is the moonlight now
That casts its veiled form, her voice in the distance.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / September 27, 2011)

You come to me as a goat
among flock of sheep. You
offer words I do not understand.
I neither welcomed you
Nor offered any reply.

Words.

They scare us. I will not offer
Anything except what the  poets,
Juvenile writers of love want.
A forced smile for something
We do not want nor have
Any interest for, an awkward
Conversation where we tell you
“Profound! Profound! Profound!”
And pretend that all this is
Heart felt.

(Paolo Jerome D. Cristobal / December 20, 2012 - Pasay)