as originally posted on Vannie's blog, A Daydreamer's World:

The pear leaves redden, the cicada's song is done.

Wind high up in the River of Heaven,

flute sounds: cold and cutting.

A chill on the mat, the water-clock dripping.

Who taught the swallows to make so light of parting?

At the edge of the grass the insects moan,

as autumn's frosts congeal.

Stale wine: awakening,

I can't remember when you left.

How much of what I really feel is left unsaid?

Night after night moon dawns

upon my pearl-embroidered screen.

by Ou-yang Hsiu, translated from the Chinese by J.P. Seaton.

From Love and Time, published by Copper Canyon Press.


Funny how we fail to say the things we ought to say when we really ought to say them. And funny how we realize that we ought to have said them when saying them no longer matters.

Inebriated and tired from yet another insane night of poker, the topic of conversation turned to regret, and how it's the most wrenching feeling in the world. Indeed, why we fail to say the things we ought to say when we should escapes me. Fear? Anger? Pride? So much wasted opportunity. Nasa huli ang pagsisisi.

And so we try to make-up, repeating the words over and over again. We post blogs, we make press releases to friends, we write poems and journals and stories, hoping that somehow, our repetitive words will find wings and reach the person to whom it should have been uttered to.

But until we get to stand before that person to tell him/her— in flesh and blood— what we really wanted to say, we will be always be restless, wondering, what if.