A POEM AND A NOTE
by Erlie Lopez
From a solitary tree, leaves
started falling one by one
on the ground.
Then, the wind almost unfelt, blew one leaf
to the south, another to the north,
and another, wherever else.
An old man passing by got irked
that with the knife in his pocket,
he started stabbing the trunk.
The white sap squirted on his eyes
as his knife pierced,
a thin ooze that hardly stung at first.
But as he got madder, the squirts became slobs
and he could no longer see his enemy,
the mountains and the fields, too, around the tree.
He then fell on the ground, and blinded,
he could no longer see the beautiful sky
which could have sprinkled rain.
There is cure to madness and blindness
if only one can look up.
Just a dream. And I woke up…
with hope others will see the same sense
that I see.
In the real world
of fierce and crazy
political times.
A Note from the Poet: I alluded to the current election season in my country, the Philippines. The solitary tree is my country; the old man is the president; the leaf blown to the south is his candidate from that region who withdrew; the leaf blown to the north is a leading candidate from that region who may be disqualified for a major offense specified as a ground by the election body; another is any of two lowest-ranked in the surveys.
About the Poet
Erlie Lopez is a Filipina retired from the frenetic world of Public Relations and Advertising in Metro Manila. She was, in the last 18 years, head of a PR agency she co-founded. In her independent and sedate world now, she mostly reads, writes, stays socially connected, soaks in Nature, and develops new interests and skills adapting to the pandemic mode of life. She has also returned to a first love – poetry – which keeps her heart open to the grace and rhythm of the universe.
