Lament for the Littlest Fellow

Edith L. Tiempo

The littlest fellow was a marmoset.

The question was unasked but there is an answer.
He held the bars and blinked his old man’s eyes.
Sometimes in your sleeping face upon the pillow,
You said he knew us, and took my arms and set
I would catch our own little truant unaware;
My fingers around the bars, with coaxing mimicries
He had fled from our pain and the dark room of our rage,
Of squeak and twitter. “Now he thinks you are
But I would snatch him back from yesterday and tomorrow.
Another marmoset in a cage.” A proud denial
You wake, and I bruise my hands on the living cage.
Set you to laughing, shutting back a question far
Into my mind, something enormous and final.
 Moonlight on Manila Bay
(poem, canon)by Fernando M. Maramag
Region 2 – Cagayan Valley

A light serene, ethereal glory rests Has swelled the murmur of the peaceful air;
Its beams effulgent on each cresting wave; Here East and West have oft displayed their might;
The silver touches of the moonlight wave Dark battle clouds have dimmed this scene so fair;
The deep bare bosom that the breeze molests; Here bold Olympia, one historic night,
While lingering whispers deepen as the wavy crests Presaging freedom, claimed a people’s care.
Roll with weird rhythm, now gay, now gently grave;
And floods of lambent light appear the sea to pave
All cast a spell that heeds not time’s behests.
Not always such the scene: the din of fight