okay, this poem i did not write. rather it was written for me. i received a letter with no return address. when i opened it up, all the envelope contained was this poem written anonymously. instead of feeling all happy about being someone's muse, i freaked because i had an idea who it was. we ended up not talking for the rest of the year. hahaha! that was pretty childish of me, come to think of it. anyway... it is a beautiful poem.

STREAKINGS

I lost count after that last one,
or maybe I wasn't counting at all,
like you were.
It seems that we are all trying to find our way home,
even the stars.

So, like Whitman's white ghost,
I sat silent as the stars,
singing their own lives
out of tattered songbooks,
made their voyages home.

Maybe life is like that,
a metaphor and only that.
One moment of illumination,
a streaking across eternity,
before fusing out and into.

Only that.

But I do not know about these things.
Back here, there is only reality
seeping through cracks in the pavement,
like the way fogs seep through the fissures
of the mountains hedging you.

Your voice would've carried you through,
on its wings,
and your courage too
if only you would want peace,

Only that.

But there are more questiongs
than there appear to be,
more of that love-wish.
It is so Salignerian, you know.
Maybe this one thing could make it all better

For you.

I could not blame you for burning
over that one unanswered question.
The more difficult one,
Even the stars fall
in Love.

So you could not blame too.
Because love, like death, just happens.
But streaking, one after the other,
brilliance after brilliance,
chain-smoking-like,
you, too, would find yourself

Home.

I streak too
and then become dark,
and fall.
(9:16 PM
August 19, 1999)
For Marie Angelie because unlike falling stars you leave imprints.

this got printed. cool.