Post by thepoetslizard on Oct 10, 2008 16:00:40 GMT 2
Monica S. Macansantos, daughter of Francis and Priscilla (Supnet) Macansantos, was born in Baguio City, the Philippines. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, magna cum laude, from the University of the Philippines in 2007. She currently teaches literature and writing at the University of the Philippines in Los Banos. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in the Philippines Free Press, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Panorama, and Home Life. She has been a fellow for poetry in the UST and Dumaguete National Writers Workshops, and a fellow for fiction in the Iligan National Writers Workshop. In 2002, her essay, “My Brush with Eugenics”, won second place in the Kabataan Essay Category of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.
"Packing"
Time is hard to penetrate
When it clings to the surfaces of what we own,
Never passing, but holding still
The objects it entombs.
A book, unopened,
Lies silently on the table,
Its pages unable to possess
The rawness of being turned.
A candle, unlit,
Retains its shape,
A palm that receives
The unheated air.
Then there are the words
Scribbled on sheets of paper,
Crossed out, barred
From rising from the page
And from the bruising silence.
Perhaps it is time
To bridge the distance that waits.
I open my suitcase,
Reclaiming what was mine.
I’d rather own this loss
Than suffer from its clutter,
A scattered, guerilla-like assault
On the senses.
I press my things close
To hold them all in.
For I must be whole:
Compact enough to move with one lift,
To own in one grasp.
*
"Waking"
The act of waking is never pure.
Once light unveils
The pureness called space,
Everything rises to it,
Invades it with color.
Even your own body rises,
Urged forth by the sudden openness
That you are drawn to fill,
With movement.
Movement that confronts
The wind with warm skin,
The silent ground
With the beating of feet,
The sun’s colorless rays
With a freshly painted face.
There has always been the instinct
To conjure presence out of absence.
These were gods we worshipped once,
Now virgin openings
Offering nothing in return
Except the desire
For a meeting,
A final bearing fruit.
Life issues forth
From every violation.
Come, let us bear ourselves
Into the light.
*
"Rain"
(four haikus)
1.
Sky, grey and quiet—
Behind translucent curtains,
A tinkling piano.
2.
Swept, silent staircase—
Like a sudden diamond,
A falling droplet.
3.
A clear, downward roar—
Waiting on the windowsill,
A bowl of lilies.
4.
A thinning drizzle—
Shattered glass on the pavement
Shimmers with moisture.
