Post by thepoetslizard on Oct 10, 2008 16:03:23 GMT 2
Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas
Bio from the Panitikan website
www.panitikan.com.ph/authors/t/rttorrevillas.htm
"A Balloon for Rima"
Heart's wonder tugging
At a thin string's end,
Small fist curled round
Its first precarious try
At language: Balloon, you cry,
Balloon! Call up the word,
Sound's careless, arcane magic,
Enclosing worlds
Inside its colored skin,
Of flight held in
And running moon,
And sun swimming high
In its morning bath
Of joy, and all the earth
Bluegreen with newness--
Small hand, hold fast
To what is good,
Your speechless cry
Of pain and want:
This membrane, speech,
It breaks too soon;
A small red world
Has done its worst
Past all undoing
And rueful recall:
One new balloon is all
It takes,
To free or burst
The bright, betraying splendor
Of the Word.
(1983)
Source: A Habit of Shores, ed. Gemino H. Abad (University of the Philippines Press, 1999)
Poems on the Panitikan Poetry Archive
www.geocities.com/phil_poetry/
www.news-releases.uiowa.edu/2001/october/1001torrevillas.html
Interview with the writer at:
tinyurl.com/62g5t3
