A Poem by Jonel Abellanosa

While the Crickets are Mating

 

The moon thinks the crow is firewood

So it splits the bird’s shadow from its sneaking. 

 

The bird thinks the moon is the fruit

Of contention that splintered the flock

So it tries to return its fullness

In the thickest crown it found. 

 

In the right tree, the owl might be laughing

If it hasn’t swallowed the wrong snake. 

The frogs have stopped complaining. 

The boy scribbling under omniscient stars,

Tending his mind’s earliest fire, Albert,

Who decades later will confound skeptics

With three letters and a number: e, m, c and 2.

 

 

 

Jonel Abellanosa resides in Cebu City, the Philippines.  His poetry is forthcoming in Anglican Theological Review, The Lyric, Ancient Paths, and has appeared in Windhover, PEN Peace Mindanao anthology, Star*Line, Liquid Imagination, Mobius Journal of Social Change, Inwood Indiana Press, Golden Lantern, Poetry Quarterly, New Verse News, Qarrtsiluni, Anak Sastra: Stories for Southeast Asia, Fox Chase Review, Burning Word, Barefoot Review, Red River Review, Philippines Free Press, Philippine Graphic.  He is working on his first poetry collection, Multiverse.