IN FLIGHT (Poem 44)

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago

What is it that lies inside me
Knocking ceaseless at my doors
Yet ‘twas within me? All along
It has been with me: a hidden language
That had floated visibly to the surface
Like a gigantic submarine moored in the docks.
It is my inner self’s sublime speech.

Alas! My outer self can only waken
In too little strides at a time!
It seems that today it had reached
The height where to it the inner self’s image
Is lucidly beheld like portrait
One can grasp within an instance.

In this vogue I caught the wordless code:
I’ve never been on one place alone
Never had been a portrait fixed on a wall.
I was never a nail driven on wood
That sooner would gather rust,
Rust that later defeats the nail’s purpose.
I was the walker then as I am now
I was the walker who rehearsed
Through the act of countless journeys
The provisioned undertakings of pilgrimages
In flight.

Alright! I shall to the flight proceed.
The hidden message has been unlocked with transparency
Forever shall it remain grasped by me.


[Writ. 28 Sept. 1987, Univ. of the Philippines, Quezon City, M.Manila.]