Dream of a Transcendent LoveIt was another night when the poetry gods called my name barring me from sleep until I wrote this poem on August 4, 2020 in the year of the pandemic. I posted the poem on my social media page by August 5th with plans to have the poem appear in Chapter 31 of the novel in progress. That did not happen. The muse intervened feeling the poem belongs in a later chapter. The poem serves as an original work of a character in the novel, a fictitious poet whose works were discovered decades after the Spanish American War in the Philippines in 1898. Here is the English translation of verses allegedly written in Hiligaynon (Ilongo-Filipino) and Spanish.

I consider this poem a critical piece in my creative work over the years. Thanks to my ever-supportive literary advisor Ken Miller who plays his role over and above expectations and fuels my imagination without my knowing at times. His feedback after his first reading of the poem: “Your new poem makes me want to spend th…