As always, the same old sun rises
over my weary eyes in the city
of desiccated peasants and wooden caskets.
The whistle of maya birds echo, again
and again, in my garden. The same apparition
of faces remains sullen in the starving streets.
The same zephyr sways
the leaves of sugar canes and water apple trees. Here,
where everything is filtered by my quotidian breath,
is a horror of mangled realities
of a past within faded photographs—
Every morning, my shadow has the scent of ancestral houses.
—
Simon Anton Nino Diego Baena is an undergraduate student of MSU-IIT, Iligan city.
Originally from Bais, Negros Oriental, now based in Iligan. Some of his poems have already been published in Philippines Free Press, Philippines Graphic magazine, Eastlit online literary journal, and Kabisdak online.