Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Undas” by Christine Añonuevo.

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Undas

By Christine Añonuevo

I offer dried guava leaves, smoke thickening in this season of grief

I offer orchids, purple reminders for the departed,

Blissful beauty as they journey from this world into the next

I offer rocks from the river to hold the current of missing loved ones as

connections are unforgotten

I offer novena prayers as protection to the departed who wander for forty days

I offer candles because the light reminds me of the flickering joy of time in the kitchen

as we shaped pandesal with tender geometry

I offer rice and rambutan to sweeten your journey to islands of possibility as you cross from the seen

to the unseen realm.

I offer you rituals of wailing women

Bereaving your presence as a promise

We will meet again in slow motion of the cloudwaters

and interstellar dust of Talang Batugan.

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Copyright © Christine Añonuevo

Christine Añonuevo is a community organizer, critical scholar and creative writer. Her most recent writing appears in Arc Poetry Magazine, Northword Magazine, Magdaragat: An Anthology of Filipino-Canadian Writing Anthology, Gathering Our Breath Anthology (Remembering Lapu Lapu Day 2025) and Braided Identities (Being Well in Canada). She holds a PhD in Human and Health Sciences from the University of Northern British Columbia and gratefully dwells on the Gitxsan lax’yip with her partner and young family.

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