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I cannot not remember my mother,
whatever time...whatever day,
during work or while viewing sunsets
while relaxing...or while too stressed,
her face...smiling or wearing a frown,
or a tune of a song she used to sing,
all these hover over everything
around me, they dangle like tassels
of memories,
they make me recall more.

I cannot not remember the scents
of flowers in my mother's garden
that she used to grow and love,
for they all still exist  in my garden,
dishes she used to cook for us,
I now cook for my own family.

When a breeze brushes over me,
i cannot not remember, how in the
early mornings of her life, my mother
had rushed to the church, to hear
mass...to serve God 'til the last days
of her life...she did, in every way.

I cannot not remember my own mother,
for i saw in her how to be a mother
and a grandmother
with love, extreme effort and care.


sally b

© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
February 24, 2024

8:28 Sunny Sunday Marching 3rds
(3/3/23)

<>

as per usual,

(tho my fingers strangely type ‘per Isaiah’)

commencing at my beginning with no
direction home, an entitled title asking
for complete composition, and your
attentive compensation, threatening
to sue for “failure to finish,” a crime
for which I’ve served many a year behind
the bars of my ever increasing
TO DO file

but struck am I this morn by the poetry
of the common place, the phraseology
that we use without momentary cognition,
the every~day verbiage that, within lies
perhaps veins that deserve mining for
nouveau riches

and we get what we deserve,
no more, no less, but when
I inquire who has decided this
measured cup of justice and
painted the lines of liquid fluidity,
or just vanilla inspiration, a one
hand clap and a mocking hoot is
returned  reverberating as in an
empty spelunking cave

we are all experts in the ordinary
diurnal doors that require opening
by morning, closing by night, while
waiting for that “break that would
make it ok…from the wreckage of
your silent reverie”^

yesterday was my birthday,
no, it was not, but I’ll pretend
to have that right to make the
summary judgements that the
spirits and harlequins, who,
now revealed as my silent mockers,
none
the less, no more, no,
lessening,
I am rendered,
split asunder, by the sentence I’ve self~
impose down on my conscience and
constitution

balance does not require balancing,
more bad than good, wrecked and wracked
by the un~proportionality of my unbalanced
imbalance, what flaws, what traits,
what genetics,
what misapprehensions, foolishness, led me into
this straying straight life, of no more, no
less

and I quit here for the answers do not appear,
and that voice says you need a shave, go!
look in the mirror and revelations will dance, emanating from your eyes who bear witness to all,
no more, no less




^ Sarah McLachlan, “Angel”

“This Insubstantial Pageant Faded”
(spoke by Prospero, The Tempest, by W. Shakespeare)^

<>
Our words are all actors,

a long run, run its course,
our long playing record,
scratched, love~worn to
worn out extremity, yet
yeoman service did offer,
extreme only in magical
transforming plain sight
into visions, a legacy,
bent gray, tarnished by
weary wearing aging,
their brief sparks now
but reclamation flares of
burst lights of waning days
in short lived tastings of what
was and can be nevermore

everyone’s magic has its preset
timed timing, and with
every day, each a concentric
ring marked and hallowed,
a heartbeat ring narrower
than its predecessor,
a shallower hollow,
a fair represent of both
all that came our way, and that
we resent with no resentment
into a cloud capped atmosphere
for all to ****** from a flailing,
flying breeze, their brief gleam,
multiplying, thus envisaging,
illuminating the manuscript of our
hinted future forward’s next percept


“And like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep”^