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A very long (dis)engagement





A very long (dis)engagement

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo


Once upon a time, when I wanted to be a nun, I would wake up at 4:00 a.m. put on my jacket and mufflers, walk to the Pink Sisters’ Convent and Chapel and wait for the gate to open. It always opened, I think, because I had pink roses for the gatekeeper’s wife. I always had pink roses, until someone sent me red and yellow roses. There were carnations, gladiolas, lilies, orchids, jasmines and gardenias after that. So many colors, textures, tastes and scents, and then there was the aroma of coffee beans. I got intoxicated in the brew, and in its wilderness, learned about the unknowable, and began to understand the transition of hues and the high-octane experiences of crossroads.


Happy Glen Loop

In the coldness of dawn, I walk
with my breath, swirls of white,
floating in the dark
from Happy Glen Loop
looping up to General Luna Road.

Turning left on Brent Road
I wait for the gate to open
"You are early as usual", the gatekeeper said,
but he opens, his eyes squinting.

Waiting with the woody cones under the cypress tree,
I take my sandals off, my feet caressing the sleeping grass
slowly sipping, the morning dew.

The door to the chapel opens,
pink as a rose
a chorus of angels
singing, behind bars.

In silence, I close my eyes
I pitch my voice with the voices of heaven
trying to find a stairway.

Others trickle in, as the sisters stop chanting
genuflecting, drawn by the invisible, in the cloisters
behind the altar, in an intimate union
with the unknowable,
content with what is known.

I leave, exactly at the same time,
each morning, at the sound of the bell,
back to the loop of Happy Glen
among the silhouette of pine trees
my breath, swirls of white in the dark,
vanish slowly, with the light.




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