NaPoWriMo#16: Wedding Ring and Nature (Two Poems)

NaPoWriMo or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

Below are two poems in pantun, a traditional Malay poetry form.

Wedding Ring
by Justine C. Tajonera

The wedding ring sat quietly atop some books.
It quietly disappeared that same afternoon.
Between us, there have never been more than looks,
no proofs of love required, no vows under the moon.

Nature
by Justine C. Tajonera

I watched our pet hamster, Mindy, devour
two of her newborn pups one afternoon.
I ask if war and hunger and poverty are
things we inflict on children who are least immune.

NaPWriMo#11: Resurrection

NaPoWriMo or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

Resurrection
By Justine C. Tajonera

From nowhere, from sleep, from darkness
there will be a light, a bright source.
I refuse a never ending darkness and
forgetfulness. I cannot say that I am right.
It is not for me to claim or to prove.
It will not do anything for me now.
But it is a comfort. The bindings left
on the stone. The hush of the moment
after oblivion. It is a fiction worth repeating
to children afraid of the dark, afraid of being
left behind to fend for themselves.
It was a story I was told as a child.
"She is safe. She is in heaven. She is
waiting for you." And I have believed it.
It has never had to be true.