Babeth Lolarga

[thepoetslizard]

Babeth Lolarga
(Elizabeth Jane Lolarga)

Babeth Lolarga is a Baguio-based poet, writer, journalist, and visual artist. She is a Founding Member of the Baguio Writers Group, and she has two daughters.

Bio from the Panitikan website
www.panitikan.com.ph/authors/elolarga.htm




"Open Letter of Resignation from Housewifery"


i can't come down in a low-cut peignoir
on a sunday, wallace stevens notwithstanding.
instead i flounce around in this loose
violet housedress printed with
yellow orange, emerald & tangerine triangles
you bought from me in far zamboanga.

with effort i whip up a spanish omelette
for your breakfast but before i serve
the dish, how i wish for a magician
to replace me, one who with a theatrical wave
of her hand transform the greasy stove & kitchen
counters into a showcase worth of ethan allen

i burn unintentionally the sausages from lucban, quezon,
the ones you have been looking forward to eating at dinner
you rage rage rage at my undying clumsiness
& the absent-minded air i wear all day
i blame my clogged nose & having mistaken
the smoke for monsoon mist slipping through the windows

in college my one big ambition
was not to turn into a stay-at-home wife.
the law of karma has caught up
with me apparently that i must learn, relearn
lessons on servitude & humility.

all i now know is
at the merest wisp of a chance
i shall stand surefooted once more
on the workforce's flat terrain
far from the mountain gorges
that i thought i loved.


*

"Miranda Far and Near"
(For my youngest daughter)


my skinny satin doll,
my faint moonbeam,
the struggling thing impatient to be born
i could have named you Anastasia
after the Russian imperial princess
whose docu-drama i was watching
the night the quick contractions came

you arrived squealing like a piglet,
angered by the bright, unforgiving
lights of the delivery room
since then by my chest you slept
suckled when hungry
threw up when full
cried loud enough to rouse the neighbors
until wearily i handed you over to my mother
& she crooned "que sera sera" to your ears

never one to leave you, dear one, to chance
on your sixteenth year i entrust
you to your grandmother & aunts
they tell me of your swinging moods
your pouting mouth
your finicky appetite
how upset you can get over a zit

but nothing prepares us for that day
on your twentieth year when pain blooms
like a poisoned flower in your right breast
a tumor is the doctor's prognosis
what has befallen my grown Barbie
whose simple joy it is to shop at the Top Shop?
before i can point an accusing finger
at an unheeding universe
i decide soberly, yes, doctor
let's have it out two days from now

having lost faith in rote prayers
i turn to my mother while her fingers
run through decades of a rosary
my impious eyes gaze at a friend who looks heavenward
my youngest born comes out
of the fog of anesthesia dizzy, wobbly,
nauseated, begging to be returned
to the operating table so she can
curl up to sleep some more
the surgeon describes the tumor's size
the unexpected pus pouring out of the breast
i wonder what toxin has touched her
has slipped through our cordon of protection

for close to a week i rise at midnight
& daybreak to bring you a glass of water
& an antibiotic
you tell me you have no memory
of getting up at those hours
can it be that the angel i taught you
to pray to as a child puts you back
to sleep & draws up the light blanket
of forgetfulness?

what can i tell you now, my grown doll,
my full moon with the wounded breast?
non-malignant means free of cancer
you can now traipse in Boracay in your two-piece
you can find and fall for the love of your life
& together have an adventure in Tawi-Tawi,
Uzbekistan or outer Mongolia
you can bear, breastfeed a child, baptize it Anastasia
pain will not entirely disappear
but until then i want to whisper
like in a prayer
"what will be will be."


*

"Performing Chopin"


let me run my weathered fingers
down & up your spine
the way the hands of Cecile Licad
spiral down the keyboard
to Etude No. 12 in C Minor

let me do it the way she does
con brio & with so much vim
one gasps at the sheer force
of poetry coursing through her veins

how can you lie silently on your belly?
do you not hear me thundering
allegro con fuoco on the bones
fanning out of your back?

you turn your face from the depths of the pillow
nudge me to turn off the CD player
i wring my hands worriedly, say sotto voce,
"sorry, my sweet, but the Russians have overrun Poland."