MASK

Tonight I shall try again

To pry open the wooden

Trunk I have wrapped

Where I have kept my memory;

I shall spread out

And put it on as mask

One of the smiles neatly folded;

In the deepest recesses

Of my pure heart, I shall search

For wellspring

Of the pulsing that is the fountain

Of the chest and your eyes

Will appear in the middle

Of desire gathering a whirl.

In the morning, before

Your dream snaps to an end,

I shall run after

And relay my poem

That will be recited

By the murmur of leaves

Eavesdropping, this poem

Written in the caress

Of the breeze's page;

You will hear again

The word repeated as pleadings,

This flows with the current

Of my warm endearing

To your feeling

That has gone so cold.

But I know that in every

Stroke of the paddle of love-giving

It remains there that there be no trace

Of the worth of my endearment

Left on the face of the water.

And so I keep on

With journeying once more,

I shall be bold in prying open

The wooden trunk I wrap

Where I keep my memory;

Again, I shall spread out and wear as mask

One of the smiles left folded

Where there are the eyes in full watch

Ever-ready to pop out.

-----------

*This is the  English Version of my Iluko poem, MASKARA, which was published in KALLAUTANG:  Poetics of Diversity, Displacement, and Diaspora: Ilokanos in the Americas Writing by Aurelio S. Agcaoili.