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Destiny

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by Arnel Banaga Salgado

for Federico Licsi Espina Jr.,

poet

"We poets in our youth

begin in gladness; but

thereof come in the end

despondency and madness."

- William Wordsworth

and the dream escapes

from the labyrinth of

his mind. 6:59 a.m.

he harvests words from

the vale of his imagination

on december night. 8:01 p.m. he

molds them into magnificent

crystal. I saw the glass

on his hands when the

stroke of the fire from the

acetylene tank molds

his delicate poem. the

mentals admire this polyglot

who moves the throne of

the polymath. many times his

thought wanders. millions of

light years. near alpha

centauri. his brain jumbled

when it reaches Orion,

the poet writes infinity. he

creates against the rules of

language, where a child tries

to learn. he knows mandarin,

Filipino, Spanish, English

and Ilocano. he creates crystals

from the knowledge of a tongue

and the polyglot confuses

his mind to mold the

next poem. now he lands into

strange land. unknown. the

polyglot figures out how to

learn the language of his

new home. he wants to learn

and write poetry. pica.

he eats words and the

nurse gives him none.

I have seen him danced.

jazz. the music he hears, the

people he sees give him

joy. the polyglot lives now

in eternity. imagination

becomes unbound. he cannot

create. the poet who creates

destroyed his creation.

Perhaps this is my destiny!

Manila, Philippines

January 11, 1997