By DIANA T. GAMALINDA

there is a town where the roads crawl
on their bellies to the sky.
under storm,
the roads murmur why
the warrior, the lover,
must learn
while fallen and fettered
to the dimness
and futility
of returning
to a town where the roads mourn
a short fire
besieged by stormy sky.

Diana T. Gamalinda was a poet, and a fellow at the Silliman University National Writers Workshop. Her work is collected in Circle With Open Ends. She died in 1978. She was only 19 years old.