Finding Home

"Salin" Cebuano for residue, Remains, remnants, Leftover, scrap, remainder I wrote you many poems Do you remember? And then autumn came Leaves fell But we only have summer and rain And yet, well, Now I still look for you in the spaces between those letters in the pauses between breaths in the places where my mind says, "No more, No more, No more." We were no more than residue.

Wide open spaces Four lanes of eternity Two on the sides For lovers on bike rides Politics plastered everywhere A clamor for change The heat, God, the heat And yet, trees Rows and rows of them Mangroves called "Pagatpat" That looked like Nangka Smoke-free zones, Lots of them, all of them The mellow tones of Dabawenyos The lovely nuances of their language The "ehls" in their tongues easily rolling off like lollipops sweet But without the sugar "Wala", "Balay, "Tulog" The intermingling of Tagalog and Bisaya "Magkain", "Magpunta" Ending each sentence with "Ba" As in, "Gigutom kaayo ko ba", "Grabe na kaayo atong nasud ba." Describing the wonderful as "Gwapo" The handsome as "Pogi" Change for your purchase as "Kambyo" Fever as "Kalentura" I went in April. In the height of Summer Now it is June. The clamor has been hear