My father used to say,
“Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow’s grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat—
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth—
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint.”
Nor was he insincere in saying, “Make my house your inn.”
Inns are not residences.

^{To a Friend.}

The shrine is vowed to freedom, but, my friend, 
Freedom is but a means to gain an end. 
Freedom should build the temple, but the shrine 
Be consecrate to thought still more divine. 
The human bliss which angel hopes foresaw 
Is liberty to comprehend the law. 
Give, then, thy book a larger scope and frame, 
Comprising means and end in Truth’s great name.

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; 
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink 
And rise and sink and rise and sink again; 
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, 
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; 
Yet many a man is making friends with death 
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. 
It well may be that in a difficult hour, 
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, 
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power, 
I might be driven to sell your love for peace, 
Or trade the memory of this night for food. 
It well may be. I do not think I would. 

When I talk to my friends I pretend I am standing on the wings 

of a flying plane. I cannot be trusted to tell them how I am. 
Or if I am falling to earth weighing less 

than a dozen roses. Sometimes I dream they have broken up 

with their lovers and are carrying food to my house. 
When I open the mailbox I hear their voices 

like the long upward-winding curve of a train whistle 

passing through the tall grasses and ferns 
after the train has passed. I never get ahead of their shadows. 

I embrace them in front of moving cars. I keep them away 

from my miseries because to say I am miserable is to say I am like them. 

^{Translated from the Filipino by Kristine Ong Muslim}

Swapping seven balls with his palm,
and with air. Precision inhabits the gap
between the ball’s trajectory and its anticipated
pace at the brink of hesitation—
the arc of descent. How does one grasp making
sense of timing when to hurl and when to catch?
Is it when one rehearses alone or when one rehearses
being alone? Which one holds
when there is no break from motion,
and from emotion? They thought, he makes gravity.
Then in a blink of an eye, oh! the balls are dropped.
They have yet to stop holding their breath.

Salitan ng pitong bola sa kanyang palad,
at sa hangin. May presisyon sa pagitang
tahak ng bola ang landas o ng landas ang bola
sa ritmong nasa talukap ng alanganin—
lagi sa pagkahulog. Saan inaaral ang pasya
ng pandama sa sandali ng pag-itsa at pagsalo?
Sa pag-iisa sa pag-eensayo o sa pag-eensayo
sa pag-iisa? Alin ang nasa kamay
habang walang humpay ang mosyon,
at emosyon? Wari nila, lalang niya ang grabedad.
At sa minsang pagkurap, ay! mangangalaglag ang bola.
Halos nawawala ang kanilang puso sa lugar.

I heard a thousand blended notes,
While in a grove I sate reclined,
In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts
Bring sad thoughts to the mind.

To her fair works did nature link
The human soul that through me ran;
And much it grieved my heart to think
What man has made of man.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower,
The periwinkle trailed its wreaths;
And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes.

The birds around me hopped and played:
Their thoughts I cannot measure,
But the least motion which they made,
It seemed a thrill of pleasure.

The budding twigs spread out their fan,
To catch the breezy air;
And I must think, do all I can,
That there was pleasure there.

If this belief from heaven be sent,
If such be Nature’s holy plan,
Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?