To The Desert
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
I came to you one rainless August night.
You taught me how to live without the rain.
You are thirst and thirst is all I know.
You are sand, wind, sun, and burning sky,
The hottest blue. You blow a breeze and brand
Your breath into my mouth. You reach–then bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, […]

by Mia on 4:01 pm, April 30, 2008 in echoes none spoke

He has forgotten the convent walls, the iron gate and its thousand barbs, the doors whose hinges screamed as they opened and closed. But he remembers the garden; stepping into that confused mass of greenery hidden behind crumbling stone and rotting wood, his feet sinking into grass and makahiya, yet another child despoiling a secret […]

by Mia on 12:38 am, April 28, 2008 in writing none spoke

ChickenJoy
Ali Sangalang
Mula nang mapanood ko
sa telebisyon
ang mamang nangangalkal
ng tira-tira
sa basurahan,
hindi ko na sinasaid
ang manok ko
sa pinggan.
–
Rough line-by-line translation:
From the time I saw
on television
the man rooting
for leftovers
in the trash,
I stopped picking clean
the chicken
on my plate.

by Mia on 10:03 pm, April 27, 2008 in echoes none spoke

It has taken us five years, beloved, to reach this one oasis past the desert of our parting: five years of waiting and walking and looking up at a brilliant sun and walking on again. Five years of numb fingers, parched throats, voiceless mouths. I used to forget to speak, afraid of whatever sea had […]

by Mia on 1:33 am, April 22, 2008 in thoughts (2) spoke

Working on layouts for Diwa and Likhain @ Multiply. Diwa is giving me headaches, since I’ll have to learn yet another way to skin a cat– er, the site, or at least the online shop part of it. I don’t really want to use ready-made templates.
Also, I have to work on the site structure…! Rargh.
And […]

by Mia on 3:04 pm, April 19, 2008 in projects, visuals (2) spoke

(Crossposted from Another Miyaw)
You know, when I first thought, “Hey, making pretty stuff is fun! Sharing it with other people is even better!” I wasn’t really thinking in terms of, uh, anything remotely business-like. I had a vague idea I’d sell whatever I made, but it never went beyond a fuzzy concept of buying materials […]

by Mia on 11:19 pm, April 17, 2008 in projects none spoke

From Blossoms
Li-Young Le
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take […]

by Mia on 12:51 am, April 16, 2008 in echoes none spoke

Unrequited Love
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
translated by Michael Glenny
to I. Kvasha
Love unrequited is a crushing yoke;
but if you see love as a game,
a trophy,
then unrequited love’s absurd, a joke–
like Cyrano de Bergerac’s odd profile.
One day a hard-boiled Russian in the theater
said to his wife, in words that clearly hurt her:
“Why does this Cyrano upset you all?
The fool!
Now I, […]

by Mia on 1:44 am, April 4, 2008 in echoes none spoke