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When Typhoon Ketsana ravaged Metro Manila in 2009, I felt guilt for taking pleasure in the weather in the safety of my home.

Last week I learned what it was like to be stranded—unwillingly away from home. They didn't have any name for what happened; they only called it for what it was: habagat.

I spent the night at the office where I did my best to get a few hours of sleep. Then I got home just before noon the morning after. Lucky for me as the the van I was riding found a way around the flooded areas in Sucat and therefore dodged heavy traffic.

It was only ever an inconvenience, but not one I'm ready to go through again.

*

That said, I love the rain.

1. The cold that keeps me awake.
2. The music made of water.
3. The chill brought by thunder and lightning, that buried chord briefly surfacing.

*

For days the grey skies—blurring imperfections—turn Manila Bay into a moving painting. Calm water, distant heaven, and by the horizon the ships sit.

Twice, I caught you, but no you weren't sneaking a peek, your eyes fixed on me, I looked at you and you didn't blink, didn't budge.

What?

Walk me through your head in those long seconds.

That is a beautiful face, the most beautiful I've seen. A family, I can start a family with her. Later I'll rip her clothes off and give in to what she wants. Or could you be thinking of nothing, of nothing at all?

So long as we haven't caught a falling one, our fascination remains.

*

The first few poems I wrote were filled with, if not obstructed by stars. So are the ones I have yet to write.

*

In a short film I saw this afternoon, a kid was sweeping stars from the moon. I inhabited his world and left as soon as the credits rolled.

*

On my way home. Even going out on a Saturday to take a break from the hectic workweek has become duty. The night's made darker by the stormy weather. Lamps on the highway are burning a pale orange. Dull guides, these low lights.

Evening
Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Randall Jarrell)

The evening folds about itself the dark
Garments the old trees hold out to it.
You watch: and the lands are borne from you,
One soaring heavenward, one falling;

And leave you here, not wholly either's,
Not quite so darkened as the silent houses,
Not quite so surely summoning the eternal
As that which each night becomes star, and rises;

And leave you (inscrutably to unravel)
Your life: the fearful and ripening and enormous
Being that—bounded by everything, or boundless—
For a moment becomes stone, for a moment stars.10 PM, rain a nightly visitor, I'll do this until 2 (in the morning). This—work and wonder, fear and ripen, fall and soar, rise and darken.

Death, in one of the pivotal scenes in The Dark Knight Rises, proves to be the ultimate motivator. You jump with a rope and chances are you won't reach the other end. Jump without any safety gear and you limit your fate to either survival or demise. Trying again stops being an option.

That entire scene an objective correlative to my prosaic state: There are impossible deadlines to meet, but only as they arrive do they become not only possible but easy.