Stone, Papyrus, Clay

From Alfred Yuson's Poetry Workshop Class

Ateneo de Manila University

October 2004

 

 

Inside the library, the student

Reads the dailies all the time

When he should be reading thick

Hardbound books, reams of unbound

Photocopies and scented paperbacks.

 

He better understands things

With pictures, quotation marks, headlines

Captions, sidebars—color, conversation

Movement, height, weight, breadth

Render flesh to abstractions.

 

He despises terms that are as vague as the next day

Concepts that blur like his significant other

Ideas like isms sound like Sahara or the Arctic.

 

We need not ask, then, how come the fish smell

Of the cheaper pulp lures him more.

On the paper, the student reads something familiar—

His own character immersed in every day’s color

Conversation, movement, weight, breadth and depth.

 

 

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