Marjorie M. Evasco

Marjorie M. Evasco is director of the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing and Research Center at De La Salle University. She is the recipient of the Philippines 1987 and 1999 National Book Awards for Poetry.  She traces her literary roots to the island of Bohol where she grew up and completed her undergraduate degree, and to Dumaguete City where she finished her M.A. in Creative Writing at Silliman University in 1982.

The dancer...knows it takes

Ten sacred years to learn one gesture

Of the wind’s caress on the skin of water.

Tonight, in the shadows of our dance,

I tell my soul to grow quiet,

Become lake, reflect unbroken moon.

On the deepest part of the lake,

A solitary fisher paddles his oars.

At the shore, a woman in red sarong

Sings:  their longing walks on water.

— Marjorie M. Evasco