The heavy downpour
took longer,
easily, it spread all over,
the weight of water,
drenched the ground,
the plants.....it doused
the body and
silenced the mind.

I stared
at the gloomy, grayed
horizon...while rain
poured without end.
the water level
rose...and swelled,
all active and dormant fears
lost their tethers
and darkened the floodwaters.

It seemed, the sky
really needed to cry.

and here we are, humans,
twisted...tangled up in the chaos
of a grieving universe.

With just thin raincoats
and light scarves as shields,
how do we escape the aftermath
of life's heavy downpours?


For lots of reasons, the sky
disencumbers...and cries.


sally b

© Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
August 31, 2022

-

i tell myself sometimes–

"Cut !"

when i remember
out of impulse
some bad event(s)

playing on a taped
loop of myself
screaming—

and denied scissors
capable of putting
ends to it...



s jones
Mar 2022

.

Don’t call me when you miss me.
Don’t call me when you’re sad.
Don’t call me when you realize I was the best partner you ever had.
I didn’t call you when I was broken.
I didn’t call you when I sobbed.
I didn’t call you when I was hyperventilating on the bathroom floor from the love I still felt for you.

Longing is trammeled in my throat
Oh the honeyed years
Before I knew what to miss,
Untrusted, unspoken
I exhale its blue haze
Between the last note sung
And the first note heard.
You are the wonted dream—
The consoling ache
Wearing away at softened bones
With every wish
Unheard, unanswered
The stars are so beautiful and so cruel
Our untethered threads
Adrift in the firmament
Uncut
Yet untied.

A misty breeze…the birds’ songs,
the aroma of coffee brewing,
easily disrupt a new day’s
diaphanous veil of quietude,
to give way to morning rituals.

Stubborn, newly-woken arthritic
hands start to stretch...it takes
longer now for tight fingers to
uncurl or straighten each sunrise.

Palms open and close gently, and
then abruptly...fingers move in a
circle…clockwise, counter clockwise,
blood must flow, even when they hurt.

Some of these hands have worked
through water and soil…through
pen and paper…through rain and
sun…building, creating, moulding,
withstanding fire, getting burned,
toughened by time…..honed by
nature’s elements, and life's
many implements.

Veins are protruding,
knuckles are lined and wrinkled,
swelling with the many sketches
of life…good and bad stories,
lessons from daily existence.

It's sad, these wayward fingers
will one day…care no longer,
will turn stiff and cold...their
untold stories, kept forever.



sally b

Copyright Rosalia Rosario A. Bayan
August 17, 2022