R.I.P., OPHELIA ALCANTARA DIMALANTA

A moment for recently-departed poet Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta.

Here is an excerpt from her poem “One Final Burning”:

“its life cinders on
until this ultimate imploding,
one deafening blast to climax rite
as loved ones writhe, ashen
in their own consumed shells,
or perhaps, relived at last
over this burning’s end.
the skull tautens, breaks,
bursts forth into nothing, nil,
its ghost given up... pure annihilation!
the cold remains of its spirit
ash-kohl in its final irrevocable
bleak dissembling, now, here in
this one kind of final burning.”