June Editor's Choice: "The Gift of Memory"

© Maria Evelyn Quilla Soleta

While the month of June is especially associated with brides, summer and the pretty flowers around us, let us also not forget that the month pays tribute to the heroes of our lives, our fathers.

I wish to honor my own father, Tatay Jose, with love and affection,

this poem I wrote a few days after he passed away.

TATAY JOSE

I look up the staircase

and he is not there

looking down at me.

I cannot find him anywhere.

I look around his tangy-scented room

but I see his lifeless rocking-chair.

The television, electric fan, and radio are

turned off.

The curtains are no longer drawn apart.

Oh, how stiff! How still!

I do not hear the squeaking of the floor

in the heavy steps he wobbly made

with a cane towards his bedroom door.

The bathroom faucet no longer drips.

I spot a barely used bath soap,

and there rests his pair of slippers.

The green lunch tray

is tenderly put aside

along with the other wares,

such as his time-worn thermos bottle.

Cards and photographs crowd his headboard.

The beddings and clothes are all put away.

Very reverently. Very neatly.

Everything is silent with the world.

All, except for the tick-tock, tick-tock

Of his old, needle-crafted wall clock.

I step out inconsolably with tears in my eyes

and feel the balustrade that for many years

was wrapped

by his weak and calloused hands.

He has not left.

I hear his voice in the song of the bird

and his laughter in the cool rustling wind.

It is the sweet remembrance

Of his memory that stays

And lingers on

So very dearly.

© MARIA EVELYN QUILLA SOLETA

Philippines