Reception

He would watch television soon after waking, catching up on the world lightly spinning
.
and headily, with the latest news soon forgotten and washed over wars and stars brutally
.
fighting for air time beauty soap commercials breakfast shows morning mass broadcasts
.
take all tragedy cruelty comedy beauty barrage garbage god in without blinking perhaps
.
only seeing static, both cataracts were growing worse, into a translucent screen showing
.
only shadows, blurred pain. Out of nowhere he would chuckle out of cue, missing punch
.
lines, while someone got left behind by the love of her life, a politician danced and sang
.
in a campaign ad, another typhoon drowned another poor province, ending credits rolled
.
and every time I would bite the ache back and laugh with him. I remember getting asked
.
how I saw death. Someone turning the TV off, I said and it seemed so witty at that time.
.
I would watch him as snow slowly came into the picture and ask to hear one more story
.
about him, the war, grand old films, the ground orchids he kept, wanting to stay tuned in
.
but he would only look at me and absently smile. During the funeral rain fell right on cue
.
and messed up the reception so badly I saw almost nothing, only people planting flowers
.
deeply in the grass. Yet whenever I rewound, replayed the episode I would always hear
.
a light laughter, on particular scenes, like when they opened his box for a last screening
.
of sorts, then the rain of flowers. Like I am hearing it now, soft and scratchy and surely
.
not of this world, this electric wound, as I switch to a station-less channel and patiently
.
search among the static, stars and planets for him staring at the screen as I am, waving.

for Lolo Kanor