By Virginia Jamin Pasalo A GOOD friend from Puerto Rico, Luz Maria Lopez, is publishing “a little book with selected poems in English” and requested me to write a very short simple blurb, around five lines. She wants me to do this because she says, I’m familiar with her…
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo THE days are shorter, I believe, with each day ending without finishing as much task as before. Perhaps it’s the heat, perhaps it’s the burgeoning traffic, the sea of humans on the street, or maybe it’s my body’s declining capacity to cope with the usual…
Shorter days
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo I MEAN, your garden, your personal planned space for the cultivation of plants including other forms of nature. What happens, after you’re gone? At Teachers Village where our family stayed for more than ten years at an 800 square meters of vacant space, I had…
Gardens, what happens when you’re gone?
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo IN the beginning, we walked together, some walking ahead, some taking time for conversations. Sundays were intended for bonding with family members, those who live in the Philippines, with the exception of Lydia, who was busy with her grandchildren, the renovation of her house, or…
Family
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo WRITTEN eight years ago, on April 27 2016, under circumstances of remembrance. Some memories recede in the backwater of our mind, whether we accept it or not, and when we remember them, it is not always with the accuracy with which we first remembered them…
Unforgotten
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo I finally reached my destination at Sky Villas thirty minutes after the appointed time. I know I will be late, given the traffic situation, but the driver told me, “Di na ho tayo mag-Waze, waste of time. May alam po akong short cut!” I learned…
Short cut
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo THIS poem was written in 22 May 2022. It was not Women’s Day. They say we need not remember women because they are present at every moment, every peaceful encounter, everywhere, especially in places of conflict. They are mostly remembered carrying, nurturing children, the sick,…
A day to remember “She”
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo AMONG the commissioners of the Pangasinan Historical and Cultural Commission (PHCC), Arabela “Bel” Arcinue, Santiago “Sonny” Villafania and myself share a most curious discussion: the Anunnaki. In the earliest Sumerian writings about the Anunnaki, which come from the Post-Akkadian period, the Anunnaki are gods born…
AnoNaQue
By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo The Ordinary You it’s in the way you flip your hair that half-drawn smile the way you bite on fresh watermelon the way you swagger and stammer and paralyze your tongue the plainness of your conversation your lack of conversation the choice of your words…