COME TEMPEST!

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Welcome, most devastating Tempest!
I’ve been expecting your arrival. Do again
Try to smash my Will and sap my strength with your
Diabolic winds, undersea currents and tsunamis.
Let us, while the universe watches, dance together
With no choreography: you are destroyer of all laws.
Crash me, crash me till the hardest of my bones
And inner strength will erode and fade away
To become lore that will no longer fit to be narrated…
That is, if fortune is on your side.
But Tempest, I am the architect of situations,
The productive zenith of sorceries of a million magi,
The master slayer of demons and dragons
That attempted to waylay me on my journeys.
Tempest, never have I lost to you, never have I
Pleaded that you depart from me when you’re around
As when you were present a hundred times before.
I have become cast as the hardest steel
Each time that you’ve made your visit.
Come, Tempest! Make your call once, twice and
A thousand more times: witness me as I again transform
Your powerful forces into ones that will steer me ahead—
Five steps backward and ten steps forward, I’m never
Off-balanced at all by your potent tormenting winds.
Feel me,Tempest, I’m overly cast
I’ve become a super-Tempest whose everyday dream is
To ensnare you as a slave and outcaste.


[Writ. 08 Jan.89, U.P. Village, Quezon City, M.Manila]