• "THE PORTRAIT" (1976) - a poem by maryan54
  • As Phoebus inflames the eastern sky with fiery haze,
  • a small Mangyan village throbs into life
  • from a quiet night slumber,
  • the river’s fresh crystal waters
  • slush through its earthly scar in rhythmic harmony,
  • the forest, too, awaken –
  • the hawk with its deathly gaze and eerie cry,
  • the strong echoed refrain from an oriole,
  • perched on a magnificent acacia of spectral silhouette,
  • purple orchids blending their heavenly hues
  • amidst wild greenery,
  • streaks of sunbeam play capriciously from a spruced canopy.
  • It grows warm, warmer and still warmer –
  • till birds of heaven seek refuge in a quiet secluded spring,
  • a mélange of weeds and ferns bends forth heavily, oppressively,
  • an unnamed deity forbids the winds to stir –
  • damp, still and musty
  • naked children slumber off the heat away … away with heat!
  • Ah, so now comes a welcome spell!
  • no longer the sun in zenith high
  • the acacia still stands magnificently content and whole
  • mountain gods, bathed in eerie glow, border a fading horizon
  • bamboo foliage flaps about wildly, unceasingly
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