WHY DO I LOVE YOU SO DEARLY

Erle Frayne Argonza y Delago


Why do I love you so dearly?
As if love were an omnipresent elixir
From the teapots of Eros
Its fading is now next to impossible?
Certainly and o! so certainly because
You’ve been a person unto me who
Never ran out of kindness
Never ran out of reasonableness
Never ran out of sweetness
And so you deserve my love and tenderness.

O! Sweet daughter of the race of Zarathustra!
Behold! I’ve come for you! I am a gift
A present by my forebears Apollo and Dionysos.
I’ve come armed with the edict of my Will—
Evoked is my will to Love!
I am a harbinger of the Shadow—
The benign shadow of Love
That ceaselessly follows you:
It has been anchored in your bosom.

The forces of the Past can’t seem to leave you
Even as the Future now knocks upon your present
But the Past will be incinerated by its own twilight
And the Future gleefully glides before your countenance.
Shudder not with the sight of the Future
You shall find the door to its halls
And I’m the guardian who’d patiently waited for you
I’d lead you to Future’s spaces where we
Shall celebrate our affinity with dances
And fancies.
The Future will be delighted as we’ll dance
Together on its sacred floor
And Love’s the tune that we as ordained
Lovers never can ignore.


[Writ. 20 Jan.’89, U.P. Village, Quezon City, M.Manila]