This week’s poem in the Catholic Poetry Room is by Karlo Sevilla.
Praxis
for Nicaraguan liberation theologian, poet, and priest Fr. Ernesto Cardenal (1925–2020)
To live and love
until arms wear out
and there is only
the wounded
and withering heart.
To live and love
until the word
is no more
and there is only
the healed but withered
heart then the heart
is no more and nothing
is wounded nor withers
and everything is bright and new.
Originally appeared in Philippines Graphic.
Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City, Philippines, is the author of seven poetry books, among them the full-length Metro Manila Mammal (Soma Publishing, 2018) and the chapbook Recumbent (8Letters Bookstore and Publishing, 2023). Nominated three times for the Best of the Net and shortlisted for the 2021 Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition, his poems have appeared in Philippines Graphic, the Philippines Free Press, DIAGRAM, Matter, Radius, Small Orange, and elsewhere. He is a 2024 International Fellow of the International Human Rights Art Movement (IHRAM) for poetry. Website: Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City
