Poetry Annual · Fall 2003
Sagada
Carlomar Arcangel Daoana
Every time the eye
enters this place,
the mountains
do not want
to be transformed.
In their green predictables—
pine trees growing
ears of mushroom,
the infinite conjugation
of ferns—nothing moves,
no stone falls
from this world
to the next.
Because here,
it is always present
and all the animals recognize
this stillness: birds circling
the air, creating the shape
of permanence,
the deer lighting up
the water it gazes.
Nothing dies here,
for dying means
passing merely
as the wind,
slashing through the rocks.
I wade through the river,
down the slope,
where the fog settles
its enduring whiteness,
wanting to be considered,
wanting to be received.