Guest Blogger: Ralph Semino Galan, Ode to My Mom

Ode to My Mom

(for Annette Semino Galán)

by Ralph Semino Galan
Copyright 2016 by Ralph Semino Galan

Mother, who is pushing seventy,

smiles at me, cracks a joke, laughs. 

She has weathered all sorts 

of tragedies: my grandmother's 

early widowhood and her childhood

deprivation; her college years 

in an industrial city after the quiet

of her hometown's somnolence;

her early and latter career battles 

with principals and superintendents; 

the sudden death of her husband,

my father, after the Great Flood.

I am awed by her cheerfulness 

and her resilience, though sometimes

a chink in her armor shows, a tear

running down her plump cheek 

as she remembers a certain event,

with or without regrets: the death

of a family member, both near 

or far; the births of her six children;

debuts and weddings; her desire

to have a host of grandchildren...

Mother smiles, cracks a joke, laughs,

while I can only gift her with this poem.

BIO- Ralph Semino Galán is Assistant Director at UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies and Associate Professor at UST Faculty of Arts and Letters

Reprinted with permission of the author. Thanks, Ralph!

Read also

• Preparing for the Second Literary Symposium in Jac...
• Lunch with Linda Nietes and Robert Little of Phili...
• Easter Bunny Ears for Che and Tesla? #catpics
• Cebu, Philippines: Then and Now, Plaza Carlock Ham...
• Cebu, Philippines: Felicidad Climaco, Filipina Suf...
• Tags: poem, poetry, mother, son, Filipino, Filipina, UST, creative writing, Ralph Galan

      This is all for now,

      Cecilia