Carlo Rey Lacsamana

Fugitive Poem in the Time of Plague I

It will be a long short story
our gasping century
running out of breath

deep in its hollow ribs a billowing virus
spreads like grass like flames nursed
by the unwashed hands of history

this too is an old story
the panic lockdown the ghost towns
houses shut in fear

the morning music in the air
a moonlight sonata played by three hands
the sick the dying the dead

these days
our only life-saving instrument
is to stand defenselessly on the balcony

to marvel at the unwrinkled beauty of the sky
the divine indifference of its blue
its generous expanse

to glimpse the phantasmagoric faces of our neighbors
behind windowpanes who in our everyday life
we ignore now are radiant as rare stones

to smell the castaway breeze which is sweeter than ever
despite the homeless wails and deserted
landscapes it carries on its back

to admire the ageless rooftops dressed in moss and sunlight
carry the remorselessness of the seasons
and the unfathomed wisdom of birdshit

maybe we are finally learning
learning what is final
the vocabulary of ending

how abandoned we are
in our need for each other
in our unwelcomed solitude

as we wait for the shadow’s death
settle at the dinner table of life
we say our grace

give thanks for bread and wine
for our hushed exile for the measured days
we run in circles

for the campfires in our windows
where we sit by with our eyes wide open
while the stars watch from a corner of the sky

how lucky we are still alive

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Carlo Rey Lacsamana is a Filipino born and raised in Manila, Philippines. Since 2005, he has been living and working in the Tuscan town of Lucca, Italy. He regularly writes for journals in the Philippines writing on politics, culture and art. He also writes for a local academic magazine in Tuscany which is published twice a year. Some of his articles and poems have also been published in small magazines in the U.S., Canada and the U.K.. Visit his website or follow him on Instagram @carlo_rey_lacsamana.