In search of something, I stared through the cages

 

                              You will find it here, the voice said.

 

                              That is a unicorn.  In that cage is a minotaur.

 

                              There are the sea nymph, the cyclop bird,

 

                              The hell bird and the bird of paradise.

 

                              That is a Sphinx bird, a strange one indeed.

 

                              Look!  That’s the Phoenix!

 

                             Over there is something to walk with

   

                             In the darkest streets.

 

                             No, not them, I said.  I need

 

                             Something with the color of torn old letters.

 

                             Something whose voice was the voice that broke

 

                             And which I did not hear

 

                             As I walked away.

 

                             Something with the softness of a hand

 

                             This hand once held in late night walks.

 

                             Something whose heart once understood

 

                             The burning dreams of the river’s heart..

     

                             Something whose name was Life.

 

                             I am sorry, Sir, the voice said.

 

                             But we don’t have it here.

 

                             I started to leave.

 

                            Wait, the voice said.  There’s a caged thing

 

                             In that dark attic.

 

                            A mysterious lady brought it one day.

 

                            It has no name.  My little girl gave it

 

                            A funny name.  She calls it Love.

 

                            I left the place with a promise

 

                            To return some other day.

 

 

 

    - Reprinted from FOCUS Philippines Weekly & MOD Magazine

 

 

(Editor’s Note:  The poetic form uses the narrative techniques espoused by the English poet T. S. ELIOT , the American Pulitzer Prize Winner ROBERT FROST, and the Spanish Nobel Prize laureate Federico Garcia Lorca.)