It's different now
No longer am I sad about
The trivialities
That used to squeeze my heart dry
My heart is stronger now
I'm on my feet,
Grounded
Even astounded,
I guess
Because I'm different now
I don't know how
Through all the years
Of toil
Now my heart is spoiled
With love
And I'm grateful
All I can cry about is being too happy
All I can feel is thanks...

Every death
I have felt, or known,
In silence, i mourn,
Within my breath...

No words come upfront
Just thoughts, preponderant...

I'd feel the freezing cold of an empty space
Feel the absence...clearly imagine a lost face
No smiles, spanning from cheek to cheek
Eyes, seek answers...
suddenly, I'm there by the shallow water of the creek
While some nearby creatures quietly chirp...and squeak
While I......... I could not even speak...

Living,
Is realizing...and accepting
At the right time, they turn brown, the weeds...and reeds,
But, under the water...waiting, growing...are their seeds
Brown ferns...are almost detached from a mossy concrete wall
With a strong current, and wind, they'd be carried...ready to fall

The driftwood lying by the shore...is always wet, but petrified
Brown fallen leaves, on the green grass...no more hold...crisp and dried,
The dead bark of a tree...in pieces...are crumbling...
Merging with the wet earth...in a process of fertilizing
Deep down under ....a fresh spark of life is starting.
All these, remind,
Life and death stand side by side,
That in the midst of death-
Something new is birthed...
When faced with death,
there is always someone's living breath
And, as long as the heart wills to beat
Then, life.....will still exist.

Hundreds, or a thousand times,  
We all have died
In the high and low of life's tides,
Physically,
Emotionally.

We remember
Those who have left
Those who have survived..are still around
We think of those who are next to leave,
Waiting for their chests' final heave

---And then, we think of ourselves---

Worry not of our own time
Make each of our remaining days
Be golden, beaming, and bright
With good deeds, and straight pathways

The earth is a moving circle
It makes a round.......as it spins
We try to live outwards....and then, within
Any way we live it...life is an endless cycle.


Sally



Copyright March 23, 2016
Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan

I don’t know if you know
I carry you
in an involuntary sigh
in a constant exodus of yearning
and in the frantic deepness of all
nostalgic thought, shaking time and distance
to place me near you
in the closeness of your warmth
remembered

I carry you in sorrow
precipitated
in the absence of your voice
and in the memory of your rib cage molded
in the shape of ardent weakness
my embrace

I carry you, the braille at the tip of my fingers
life drawn in lines on my left palm
and in the carcass of calm interrupted
by the pounding of a heart’s ill-time

I don't know if you know, but
I carry you in the crown of memories consoled
and in the spine of excess
where I fall, between involuntary sighs
defeated
in your skin remembered
from the confines
of the heart