Diffractions

Sestina: Diffractions

I protested at the US Embassy, a cop’s truncheon landing flat
on my head. Scampering towards Rizal Park
I cooled off, mingling with hobos and chess aficionados. But later
dove to the mainstream, the pungent light
of a red sun vanishing. What’s in me, proud
descendant of the Malay race, can’t even show my real face?

When I was a kid in the seventies. I lost my face
in a mind-blowing party in Project Three. I was a square, came out flat
with the psychedelic crowd. Tina Turner’s Proud
Mary, on top of the charts, was bursting from a stereo. President Park
Chung-hee of South Korea was almost assassinated by the North, the light
of a scythe moon bloody-red. The cold war was hot item. Later

Kennedy’s “Bay of Pigs” attack turned out to be a dud. See you later
Alligator, I sang palely at a john. Yet face to face
with myself saw a goat in the clan. With the light
of my Camel cigars limping, planed to Spain, rented a flat
in Barcelona. Drove the dead for a living. At Park
de la Ciudadella met Helen, a Filipina pediatrician. Courted her. Proud

was I when she said “yes.” But mother always phoned. So proud
was I no more when the child doctor mistook me for a mama’s boy. Later
the funeral parlor died. Jetted economy class home. "Park
your past," my father, an officer in the constabulary, said. Took his advice at face
value. In a cold December read poems. Frost warmed. Plath pathed. Like a flat
tire infused with air found hope. Wrote. Got Published. Felt light.

But a year late Father was gunned down by the reds. At the wake, the candles’
light
diffracted in the cold divisions of the ornate chapel. "Death, be not proud,"
a speaker quoted Donne. The Bataan choir, in E –flat
major, sang “Blue Skies,” Father’s favorite. Later
the coffin was lowered. Sobs crooned. Death has some soul in it. His face
was like a drake in a Manansala masterpiece. Now, here at Green Park

Village I write. Sometimes it’s a tightrope act, sometimes a walk-in-the -park.
What’s essential is I’m bathed in Literature’s light.
I write more about the neglected, the written -off. What a complete about-face
from my former carefree self. Proud
is my mother of eighty sparkling summers. Later
I ventured into short stories, got some novel ideas too. You shouldn’t be
flat

in your form and content, my two creative writing mentors, who park a Datsun in our lot, bark. Later other worlds will be in my
words, and the light
once diffracted will steadfast under blue skies and onto my father’s proud face.