Presents

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

THERE are presents and presents. Don’t get me wrong, I love all the gifts, including the books, the flowers, the cakes, the coffee beans, the sketches of my face, the dinners, the lunches, before, during and after. I appreciated all of them, especially the care and the effort that brought them to me.

But let me be honest with what i truly wanted to receive. I miss receiving letters, in long hand. The last time i got a written letter was in 2005, it was one paragraph. I was hoping to get one, but the only thing written in the gifts were short remarks and a signature.

I once complained to a friend that everything is so very quick now, just a touch on the keys, and you get to get in touch with any part of the world. The world has become a world of touch and go. No one talks about “taming” anymore in the sense of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “Little Prince”. No one becomes responsible for the tamed as well.

One day, I received a present, sent by a touch of a finger. It was a very sweet and long conversation, made real by a visual link at some point in the universe. Any doubt I had that the imagination can do much more than ten percent of its full capacity, is down in the theoretical dustbin. The imagination is a powerful machine.

And he did not know it was my birthday. There was no need for him to know. It is enough that he was there. He was better than a long letter.

Imis

no arum panduaruaan ko

no imbaki ka na Dios

pian duksaen to ak

ed imis mo

 

ag ak ni akataway na bibil

ya untan su inkagawa to

tan ag ak ni akanengneng na matan

untan su kirlap to.

 

pipiliten ko’y ag unimis

pian ag nanengneng

su inkakapuy ko

balet say matak immamo

et say laman ko, simmuko

ed segaw na nonot ko

 

diad lakap mo, agko naalmo

irama’y bitewen ko,

dakerakel su mankirkirlap ya bitewen

aakmunen da’y inkatook

paarap ed andeket ya abot

na imis mo

 

Smile

sometimes i wonder

if you were sent by God

to torture me with a smile.

 

i have not tasted such lips

as fully as it is shaped

and i have not seen such eyes

as bright as yours can sparkle

 

i try not to smile back my vulnerability

my lips dilate, not only my eyes

and my body surrenders

to the panic in my mind

 

in your embrace, i cannot locate my stars,

so many other stars are twinkling,

sucking my whole being

into the black hole of your smile.

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