new year na naman

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I love how things attach themselves

to other things--the rocks sitting stubbornly

beneath a river, the beards of moss.

I choose a color and it connotes sadness.

But how long must the symbols remain true? Blue

is blue, not lonely. After a time, one gives up

reading the sky for shadows, even rain.

There is no promise, only a possibility.

A moment moves to another, and still it feels

the same. Like old letters in boxes.

Or how the rain, at times, falls invisibly.

Finally, the things we love demand more love,

as if we have always been capable of it. Yet

I can only offer belief, mirages that mean water,

long travels leading somewhere. I am reading

old letters, trying to make something

of what's been said. It might be raining;

some pages are unreadable.

-Joel Toledo, Attachments

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salamat 2009.