Filtering sawdust...

another outstanding poem from an exceptional Filipino feminist..

From the idealist that she was when younger, she emerged a pragmatist, a practical woman reshaped by the realities of life. She had found that life is not all love, that love is not the only way to one's goal. She realized that this world is "circumferenced with lucre/ within a coin of brass." She plunged into business and traveled and prospered. But Philippine literature lost her.

ERMITA IN THE RAIN
by Angela Manalang Gloria

It is not the rain that wanly
Sobs its tale across the bay,
Not the sobs of lone acacias
Trembling darkly in the gray,

Not the groans of harried breakers
Flinging tatters on the shore,
But the phantom of your voice that
Stays me dreaming at my door.