IN THE TIME OF THE HOLOCAUST

The blogger as actor in a drama presentation of the Grim Reaper in elementary grades

for Laarni Julian Suela Comabig and the Mangyan Maiden

(after reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy)

go to another country where the moon
     is a meandering river
the sun a flight of birds in a sky of utmost blue
it is a season when papayas are in bloom
but the tree is a barren woman in the spring
     of her life--gone are the stars in her eyes
it's a season of harvest but the farmer is rueing--
     his carabao has long crossed the divide.

an old man is walking on the beach
     strewn with ashes and dead fish.
it is sunset, but the voices of urchins are muffled
and death is alive in the silence where once
     stood the great forest and mansions of rocks.

go to another country where the sun rises
in the west and th moon weeps
                                           at sunrise.

and we? we shall search the ruined cathedrals
comb the mountain city that perished in cries
      and flames
and finding none, we shall descend into the canyons
     of memories.