Sestina: Diffractions I protested at the US Embassy, a cop’s truncheon landing flat on my head. Scampering towards Rizal Park I cooled off, mingling with hobos and chess aficionados. But later dove to the mainstream, the pungent light of a red sun vanishing. What’s in me, proud descendant of the Malay race, can’t even show my real face? When I was a kid in the seventies. I lost my face in a mind-blowing party in Project Three. I was a square, came out flat with the psychedelic crowd. Tina Turner’s Proud Mary, on top of the charts, was bursting from a stereo. President Park Chung-hee of South Korea was almost assassinated by the North, the light of a scythe moon bloody-red. The cold war was hot item. Later Kennedy’s “Bay of Pigs” attack turned out to be a dud. See you later Alligator, I sang palely at a john. Yet face to face with myself saw a goat in the clan. With the light of my Camel cigars limping, planed to Spain, rented a flat in Barcelona. Drove the dead for a living. At Park de la Ciudadella met Helen, a Filipina pediatrician. Courted her. Proud was I when she said “yes.” But mother always phoned. So proud was I no more when the child doctor mistook me for a mama’s boy. Later the funeral parlor died. Jetted economy class home. "Park your past," my father, an officer in the constabulary, said. Took his advice at face value. In a cold December read poems. Frost warmed. Plath pathed. Like a flat tire infused with air found hope. Wrote. Got Published. Felt light. But a year late Father was gunned down by the reds. At the wake, the candles’ light diffracted in the cold divisions of the ornate chapel. "Death, be not proud," a speaker quoted Donne. The Bataan choir, in E –flat major, sang “Blue Skies,” Father’s favorite. Later the coffin was lowered. Sobs crooned. Death has some soul in it. His face was like a drake in a Manansala masterpiece. Now, here at Green Park Village I write. Sometimes it’s a tightrope act, sometimes a walk-in-the -park. What’s essential is I’m bathed in Literature’s light. I write more about the neglected, the written -off. What a complete about-face from my former carefree self. Proud is my mother of eighty sparkling summers. Later I ventured into short stories, got some novel ideas too. You shouldn’t be flat in your form and content, my two creative writing mentors, who park a Datsun in our lot, bark. Later other worlds will be in my words, and the light once diffracted will steadfast under blue skies and onto my father’s proud face.