Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Summer Joy

Sister Jude Belmonte Paat, SPC
Guest writer, in loving memory


Painting in acrylic by AVRotor 2002

The April sun pours its warmth
into the morning and we are roused.

We run to gather siniguelas,
once dark green turned carmine,
now orange-red cupped in our hands.

We comb fruit-laden chico and pomelo trees;
we frolic with the prelude of kakawate's
balding branches yielding delicate blossoms
arching behind your playhouse.

The gurgle of the Owaig has ceased,
but its silence evokes brilliant bursts of joy
as you bravely scamper to this forbidden place
with 3-year-old Chevit aping you,
painting your lips, teeth and tongue
purple under the duhat tree.

You guffaw with the kid brother
as the hammock between sturdy rimas trees
swings full into the air.

How long can our sounds soar
to screen the heat of the sun?

Soon, the spell of dusk downs
and drowns to deliver the day of reckoning.~


Sister Jude Belmonte Paat, Sister Mamerta Rocero, and Sister Macarius Lacuesta formed a triumvirate of poetesses that brought the Paulinian community to literary fame in their generation. Their poems transcend spirituality to idealism and rationality of mankind. They bring back the values of old, weaving them with love and joy of creation, and exuding God’s presence everywhere. This triumvirate left behind a legacy of a golden era that shall remain forever in the hearts of those touched by their genius and deep concern for humanity. (AV Rotor)

A critique on the poems of Sister Rocero is found this Blog: Sister Mamerta Rocero, SPC, PhD - A Religious for All Seasons (January 22, 2010)

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