COME TEMPEST!

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]