Strangers

Kahapon may nakasabay ako sa train! haha, may small crush kasi ako sa kanya nung una ko palang syang nakita sa capoeira trainings, may hawig sya kay Kyuhyun ng super junior (di ako fan ng super junior, pero cool nung dance sa sorry, sorry), promise! Kyuhyun pero mixed-jap na ang ganda ang biceps at magaling gumalaw. You know, that man-boy vibey eye-candy. Pero awkward na sya eh, nahuli nya yata akong tumitingin madalas tapos nung minsan sa isang party, sobrang inasar pa ko sa kanya with matching tulak, kamusta naman yun. Kaso straight sya at kilala pa nya yung college friends ko (di pa nila alam about my um, orientation haha).

Anyway, we both pretended not having noticed each other kahit we were almost face-to-face nung pagpasok ko sa train, kunwari na lang akong busy-busy thumbing through my playlist, at sya naman nakita ko turned on the opposite direction. Hindi naman ako affected (ok, konti lang hehe, sayang di ko nakita yung cute nyang smile).

Blah-blah, bat ko ba shinare yun, wala lang. May binabasa akong poetry book on my home that time (na hindi ko pa rin tapos kahit ididiscuss na ng reading group ko mamaya, lol) tapos BAM! basa ko tong tula na to, nabasa ko na to dati eh, pero nung oras lang na yun ako tinamaan. Ako na ang ang emotero sa loob ng tren. Inspired daw kasi ako that time, char. Basta. Sobrang hands-down talaga ako sa mga poems that speak not just on the level of words BUT also on the level of image.

Galing sa Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts ni Jorie Graham:



Strangers

Indeed the tulips
change tense
too quickly.
They open and fly off.
And, holding absolutes
at bay, the buds

tear through the fruit trees,
steeples into sky.
Faith is where we are
less filled
with ourselves, and are
expected nowhere—

though it's better to hurry.
The starlings keep trying
to thread the eyes
of steeples.
It's hard, you can't
cross over. The skin

of the pear tree is terse
like the pear, and the acorn
knows finally
the road not taken
in the oak.
We have no mind

in a world without objects.
The vigor of our way
is separateness,
the infinite
finding itself strange
among the many. Dusk,

when objects lose their way, you
throw a small
red ball at me
and I return it.
The miracle is this:
the perfect arc

of red we interrupt
over and over
until it is too dark
to see, reaches beyond us
to complete
only itself.


___