SWAN SONG

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the pain, the solitude, the sea,

The wranglings with one’s muse, the bitter coffee,

Would it have been worth while,  

To have sweated on the hardships of a rhyme,

To have cursed the universe, cursed the war,

Again and yet again to ask The question, any question,

To say, ‘I am the prophet, I shall tell you all,

I have come to tell you all’-

Would it have been worth while,

If one, scavenging at a magazine stall,

Should see one’s deathless verse beside a Kotex ad,

            And say:  ‘That is not what I wrote at all,

            That is not it, at all.’

                                                   -  Lorena Barros

                                                      October 26, 1968; Philippine Free Press; p.31