First Annual Festival of Women's Poetry  *********************November 2008*********************
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First Annual Festival of Women's Poetry *********************November 2008********************* :: *International section :: Women poets from around the World :: Filipina poets :: Elsa Martinez Coscolluela
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 Elsa Martinez Coscolluela
« Thread Started on Oct 10, 2008, 4:03pm »



Elsa Martinez Coscolluela


Bio at Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsa_Martinez_Coscolluela


"Cuernos de Negros"

The gentle rustle of mountain spirits
Unspool memory as the lamplight leaps
Into a sudden dance: once a child
He had watched his father clearing grass
Grown wild; he had sought and staked
His kinship with the sower's stance
And drove the plough with his bare hands.

Up in the sky he had scanned the slopes
Of his father's mountains: gently winding
Down, the river ran from the bubbling spring
And split and multiplied across the heaving
Fields so richly pied with fruits
And ferns and flowers; now scourged by dry
Winds whipped by the sun's thieving eye.

Midnight under the cold white moon
And dim, dying stars, he returns and wonders
Still at the curious call of dark birds,
The plop of frogs on a quiet pond, cicadas
Crying about the trees, the swish of scythes
At harvest time, and the boy that ran
Singing down the winding mountain slopes.

At dawn, through the clearing fog, steel
Structures rise close to the sky, dig
Deep between the mountain's horns, suck
From its stones its majestic core of power.
In time, the springs will die, and all
Will genuflect before the powerful spires.

In time they will not remember, but perhaps
When they grow old, they will see visions
Of Cuernos de Negros in their dreams.

(1975)


Source:
A Habit of Shores, ed. Gemino H. Abad, University of the Philippines Press, 1999.




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« Last Edit: Oct 31, 2008, 1:48am by shayepoet »Link to Post - Back to Top  IP: Logged
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