FROM DOWN UNDER, THIS LADY

The Iluko literary icon, Apo Ariel Agca the lecturer par excellence

Imee Marcos with TMIF officers and adviser including an Iluko literary winner

(For Manang Fele J. Mann
for a gift of encounter on Dec. 28, 2009)

She comes from the sun
this lady from down under
a proverb unto her own:
what is she who comes
with a smile even when
the angels are mad, raging
and restless in their flight?

She has gone away
only to return where
she comes from
the warm soil, moist and dry,
that knew her hands
each clasp in prayer
cusped for the asking
for some salving to come
to assuage the bruised body
the bruised soul, mind
and this story of return
offering a loving lullaby.

She keeps her appointment
with time and all those moments
that tell you of sins revisiting
the sinner only to talk about
that which gives some sweet

From left: Peter La. Julian, Lady Fele, a winner in a writing contest, and Fele's California-based sister Francisca

Lady Fele celebrating her birthday during the 2011 TMI-Global International Literary Conference in San Nicolas, Ilocos Norte. Dr. Visitacion Mamuad giving her flowers.

sweet balm.

We let go off the accounting
of lies, she tells, her voice firm,
that of an angel seeking light.
The deception is complete
and can not be undone,

We move on, she says, 
to painting pictures with the colors
of that which will remind us
of the mercies we accord
to the lesser kind
some pretenders to some greatness
we can not figure out how.

With her by myside,
I think of red here, like
the rebel word of a clown
or the clandestine cadre
of a poem about a metaphor
for a final freedom.

She says she is delighted,
so delighted we have met
for the first time after 
miles and miles of letters
bridging what distance
separated us from her Darwin sun.

I tell her the same thing:
I send you my stars and my moons,
their alighnment the meaning
of what I have become
in the Honolulu of my lifetime.
Stronger as you can see
even if at times, some of the time,
the scars open up to countries
I have gone to journey
one meaning of what is beyond.

Aurelio Solver Agcaoili
Pasig, Dec 28, 2009