For Maningning, Seven Years After

FOR MANINGNING, SEVEN YEARS AFTER
(September 29, 2007)


If I do it now, somersault
headfirst into the river of concrete
from the rooftop of the building

where I teach, will it create
a scene: a semi-abstract painting
of pain slightly obscene, face

distorted, body contorted, almost
Cubist, but with clots of red
darkening the impromptu canvas?

What lesson is there to learn
from the freefall of my leave-taking,
the picture perfect trajectory

of my utter failure to survive?
Will poet-friends revive me in songs
and elegies, words transforming

my rotting flesh into parable,
legend, myth? Or will I be forgotten
after the tabloid's rabid headline,

shame on my name, the anguish
I relish: a mad troubadour
plunging into inevitable oblivion

without your star's redeeming light?


Note: The late Maningning Miclat was a young and talented poet-painter of the Philippines. She had won many national and international prizes for her poems and paintings.