Post by thepoetslizard on Oct 10, 2008 15:57:02 GMT 2
Aileen Ibardaloza has two passions—science and poetry. She is a molecular biologist who, according to her sister Cecile, "manages to string words like DNA sequences." Aileen lived in Manila and England, and is now based in the US.
"From the Book of Beginnings"
Eve moaned in childbirth tearing life from life
the unmothered mothering offsprings born of desire and
dispensation.
The raft carried them east across the Red Sea
to Yemen, and from Yemen to four continents
cradling the daughters of Eve through parabolic days
marked by beginnings and endings.
From glaciers, a desert, a fertile crescent
human lines diverging, changing eyes, skin, memories
keeping sacred the mitochondrial blueprint
for the women through seven thousand generations.
And from Ramah, lamentation
Rachel weeping for her children because they were not.
The women called out to their God
across eighty thousand years
out of ice, waters, deserts, islands
craving screaming immortality.
A line was drawn for the women
direct, unbroken and sacred
between them, one great grandmother
and not much difference.
*
"Interlude"
Tread the line so you can get to
her. she sits waiting for passion
that sits waiting in the vortex
of three cities. a bit of grey,
a bit of brown, the last bit in
between.
*
Excerpt from
"Manileñas"
Waiting on walls that were white
and then
endless
restless waiting
for something
for a dream
for a man
piano keys and dog dresses
to stop the knitting in the shallow dark
Cecilia and Ysabel
their croon years and mosaic lives
built on rice cakes and red dresses
penumbral islands from grass-filled flower beds
and ponytailed strangers
Piano fingers tapping yellowed keys
sewing dog dresses
weaving water dreams
Lips that mouth forever
hands hammering twin-lettered gates
pink walls
gossamer vows
not a dance
not a love
not for women unasked
unvowed
Old Manila blowing bubbles
dirty cobbles
a river rumbling for the First-Quarter Storm
Two women raised in a convent
eyes down on mystery beads
Half a day in the kitchen
for the yellow-green leaves on the floor
for tomato thoughts and pepper talks
for the sun and their place
at the end of the day.
web source:
Our Own Voice, October 2004, and April 2003
www.ourownvoice.com/poems/poems2003b-ibardaloza.shtml
