Awit ng Dahon

Nalimot ko na ang samyo ng bukid,

Ang bango ng himpapawid sa dapithapon.

Ngiti ng mga bulaklak sa parang, di’y

Naglaho sa ala-alang ulap ng kahapon.

Liban ngayon…

Hindi habang hawak ang iyong kamay,

Habang ang labi mo ay malapit sa akin;

Na sa bawat salita mo ay isang panaginip,

Ng nakaraang liwanag ng araw sa tagsibol.

Halika…

Ating palayain ang yakap ng pag-ibig,

At balikan ang mga nakalimutang Sayaw—

—sabay sa awitin ng mga Dahon.

The Healed

National Center for Mental Health, 10AM

“Let’s talk about your life.”

For the hundredth time, the young intern glanced at his watch thinking about the scheduled rounds for the morning, distracted. He was oblivious of the uncharacteristic silence that don’t usually reside in the wards of public health institutions; a silence which nursed the eerie calm of moaning and silent mutterings from the catatonic and the brain dead in the sanitized room. It was clear to him that whatever he does, mistake or otherwise, he will receive the full pardon from souls damned to forgetting how it was to live with consequences. Nothing matters, he told himself; and by the look of the resident-on-duty nothing matters whatsoever.

“Mr. Trueno, I am the one to ask questions,” replied the intern. “Not you.”

“Just call me Eddie,” said the patient in reply. “Or just Ed.”

“Ok Ed, I’m your attending. Tell me what happened.”

“You asked me that yesterday.”

The young doctor was surprised and recovered enough of himself to note it in his progress notes. These kind of patients usually suffer from short to immediate term memory loss; however, the field of psychiatry has developed significant improvement from years of research to account for remissions such as these. He tapped his pen nervously for a moment and tried to remember uselessly the intricacies of neuronal pathways to explain Ed’s reply— the intern must have an answer ready in case his superiors question his observations.

“Mr. Ed, do you remember what we talked about yesterday.”

“About my wife.”

“And he left you. Yes.”

“And about rainclouds and traveling airplanes.”

“We didn’t—”

“You see, Doctor, I want to talk about your life.”

“I need to take your history, Ed, in order to treat you.”

“But everybody here asked me,” Ed replied, his hands showing faint signs of tremor. “Same questions, I hear. Answers.”

Experience told the intern that situations like these required him to talk less and just listen to the senseless babbling of the insane. He tried to stifle the nervous agitation that swelled swiftly to controlled irritation. Noticing his colleagues enjoying their coffee while having loud casual conversations behind the nurse’s station, he gathered his thoughts and concentrated on making furious notes in his chart.

“Today I want to talk about my dog.”

“Yes, Ed, what about him!”

“His name was Pen.”

“Go on.”

“He was hit by a car one night. My fault. I never should have left him outside.”

“It happened.”

“He cried. Pen wailed not like dogs do when they’re hurt badly; but like a baby.”

“Go on,” the intern managed to say despite his revulsion.

“I had to cut off his two broken hindlegs. In pain, we cried.”

The morning sun streamed through the transparent, wide windows of the room, making the microscopic dusts visible, suspended floating light on bleach-flavored air of the hospital. The intern was sweating under his immaculate white coat, beginning to feel uncomfortable as he tried to avoid the fervent stare of his patient, which seems to penetrate the wholeness of his soul. These are just flights of consciousness, he said to himself, from an irreversibly dying cortex.

“Continue.”

“It pained me, every time I see him try…”

“Try what?”

“Try to stand every time I wake up, and share my misery…”

“When you’re wife left you,” interrupted the young doctor. “Tell me the circumstances of your—”

“I killed him. ”

The patient’s last statement stunned the intern out of his façade of professional indifference, not so much as the weirdness of the tale but mostly the weight of remorse that reverberated from it. He stared for the longest time at his patient as the poor man curled up into a fetal position and let out an animal-like cry that sent the health staff running to the bed.

“What happened?” asked the nurse.

“I don’t know,” replied the intern.

“He’s crazy, what do you expect,” said the resident-on-duty. “Give his chemical restraints. The usual.”

The intern took a loaded syringe and introduced it to the IV line. It took a several moment’s effect before the patient calmed down enough for the young doctor to ask a few more questions during that moment of lucidity that comes prior to sedation. Rationalization. It is always rationalization, he thought, that keeps the man sane in all things terrible that comes with existence.

“You did what you have to do, Sir.”

“To whom?”

“Pen, Sir. I know you loved him.”

“That’s why I want to know about your life.”

“My life is nothing.”

“You remind me of him.”

A Metric System on Emotions

There should be a legal limit for love, say just above 80 mg/dL which is the legal minimum of alcohol--- enough to be labelled drunk and disorderly. I don't know if such a thing is possible, or someone could invent an analyzer to measure the normal range of love as an emotion, or if a scientific probablity exists which might someday make it practical, I really don't know. All I know are first-hand experiences: instances when during psychiatric rounds, in an alarming regularity that approaches a level of significance, cases like addiction, suicidal tendencies, narcissistic rage leading to God -knows -what all points to a certain inadequacies that point insanity as the effect, not the cause--- and most spring from emotions of being unloved: traumatic relationships, family members not paying much attention, or as trivial as a forgotten bday gift. Somehow, if we are able to measure in a definitive, metric range an emotion such as love, perhaps it would open the floodgates for better diagnostic techniques to prevent irrational behaviour, or for pharmaceutical companies to manufacture drugs that would maintain "love-levels" in each of us; or perhaps aid the growing science of Genetics and once and for all establish the role of love, in an evolutionary scale, in the advancement of our species. Insane? I know, that's why it's cool.
***********
You know how a woman feels when she holds her baby for the first time, someone described it as if her whole soul would explode. Now that's unheard of, and dangerous. Souls exploding is the first sign of insanity, especially if that baby grows and throws you out to nursing homes. Teenagers with all their raging hormones often commit mistakes in relationships, leading to endless tears and a broken heart--- Oh yeah, a broken heart is just a ledge away from suicidal behaviour. Is there some thing one can do? Ever heard of heroes dying for their LOVE of their country? That's just plain crazy.
************
It's a fact of life, controlled emotions eventually explode, gnashing uncontrollably out of you like in those Alien movies. Love more so. That's why they're called emotions--- which in ancient Greek means "cannot be controlled by motion". Ok that one's made up, but it serves the idea. It makes us do things, good or bad, and the better it is the potential for self-destruction exponentially increases. Therefore, it stands to reason that given the technological sophistication of our time, we should somehow advocate, I apologize for the overkill, a metric system of measurement for emotions, most especially love. It is not a very romantic thought; and I am, in fact, a clinging Romanticist, so it hurts me deeply to push this idea further. However, looking back at all my mistakes--- decisions based on overwhelming emotions resulting to unwanted catastrophes--- the idea is not bad at all. If somehow I can find something to numb up bottled pains, control them somewhat, then perhaps it's reasonable.

Soul Catharsis

Alive, for still I smell the fragrance of the fields.
The chill of the rising winter breeze, sweet
Touch the morning dew drops; crystalline prisms
Playing wavelets of rainbows upon my worn Soul.

And I lay, to the harmonious caress of softness
Of rainwashed meadows, fragrant with the wind.
Remembering the Angel touch—featherlight Love,
Carefree hearts entwined in the Afterglow of memories.

Embrace then, I, the ethereal Sunrise mist.
My Spirit reveling, awaiting the coming God light.
Atoms in zeta potential freedom: a supernova birth.
Chained no more to the bliss, once— a youthful Kiss.

The Filipino is Worth Dying For

A typical commuter’s day in Manila would naturally consist of an uneventful journey aboard the city’s lifeblood, the jeepney, through the major vein of España and to its many tributaries. Always, there exists a non-spoken aggression among the working-class crowd as they jostle for inches of position, or as little as a seat preference, as they pin their hopes for a better life in going to the more economically viable places of the Metro. However, Greg’s hope was of another business. He can barely contain the expectations of the morning for the order of the day was one that could afford him security for an old age that is sure to come. The exquisitely warm, thick air of rush hour was unsuccessful in dampening his spirits, such business is there for this hope of his. Finally, Greg will go to LRA, the Land Registration Agency, for a piece of paper saying a parcel of fertile lands, his family’s keepsake since his great grandfather’s time, is legally his forever. It was not an easy battle for him given the legal details and the paper work he had to contend with; but after four years, at last he thought, everything would be good.

“You saying something?” shouted the driver beside him in the front seat.

“Nothing,” ended Greg with an edge of finality. Nobody talks to a jeepney driver so early in the morning. The price of civilization, he mused with a trace of loss, one has to commute in silence and contain his own happiness lest he be taken a fool or an annoyance. The pasahero beside him started to mount out of the vehicle; he wore a faded shirt and jeans, and a red cap to match.

“You missed that fare,” said Greg a block away. “That guy beside me didn’t pay. Bad for business.”

“That’s ok,” replied the driver. “He is a member of a syndicate. I’ve been driving for 30 years and those guys are responsible for most of the hold-ups in Manila. I’m glad today’s not my turn.”

Instinctively, Greg reached out for his back pocket feeling for his trusty wallet containing of all things, his driver’s license, a bus ticket and not the least a week’s worth of salary. He felt little droplets of cold perspiration begin to form beneath his brow as his hands swept only the rough underside of his pants signifying the resulting emptiness of his infinitesimal idiocy.

“Para.”

After the jeepney farce, Greg found himself walking the whole length of Recto worrying absent-mindedly how he will last the whole day with only fifty pesos with him. Fortunately, he developed a kind of survival foresight not so much brought about by superior intelligence than of years living in the city: he always keep a fifty peso bill under his right shoe. But now comes the question of survival. He decided to board on an air-conditioned FX taxi; at least, he thought, suspicious people never board these things during broad daylight. He paid for the required twenty peso fare to get him to his destination in the more domesticated Quezon city; so now he placed all his hope on the thirty pesos left for the rest of his day.

The LRA building in East Avenue was an empire of government employees shuffling endless papers that belonged to other people, just so those waiting in line in front of their offices would see they were doing something for the public, and taxpayer’s money was spent for these noble workhorses of the country. Well Greg didn’t care; as long as they give him his land title, he would consider all those years of paying the income and realty dues worth it, and rightly so. He approached a desk clerk who appeared to be busy with a pot of sticky glue and commenced with his business in as much brevity possible between two educated, city-dwelling professionals.

“I am sorry,” said the clerk. Creases of wrinkles started to form from the corners of her mouth heralding an onslaught of irritation from being interrupted with her work, “I cannot help you sir.”

“But madam,” appealed Greg. “I had an appointment with your office and was scheduled for today. I have here all the requirements, all the paperwork that merit the approval for release of my land title.”

“Sir, these things need at least a week to be processed. You can come back next week.”

“But I called yesterday, a woman at the register said I can get it today!”

“Don’t antagonize me, sir! Go outside and wait like the rest!”

“But… I thought…”

“Sir, will you please wait outside or I’ll call security!”

Greg waited outside the cadastral office and paced restlessly on the cheap tiles of the hallway, barely able to control the frustrations of the day. He tried to replay the conversation if anything was amiss or simply it was all his mistake; he grew weary of any introspection and collapsed himself to a nearby bench. Suddenly, the door of the office swung open revealing a morbidly obese gentleman, well-dressed however in his pressed coat and tie that made him appear like a politician about to deliver a privilege speech. The man approached Greg and extended a stubby hand but with a firm, deal-closing handshake.

“Hello there,” greeted the man with a pleasant baritone. “I’m Mr. Edgar Biron, Cadastral section chief. Just call me Ed.”

“Good afternoon.”

“Oh forgive my employee. She had a long day. You know how busy we are, it takes a toll on everyone, as you well know.”

“I understand, Sir. I just came here to …”

“Yes, about your business with my office. I believe that you are aware of the lengthy procedures we have to contend with in processing your documents.”

“I am aware but I have…”

“I’m certain you are. Let me be honest to you,” interrupted Mr. Ed, dropping his voice several decibels lower, all the while placing his huge arms over Greg’s shoulder. “These things require hard work on our part. It could take time. Time. Not unless of course you have an abogado.”

“I do have an attorney, Sir, just let me make a call.”

“Sure, sure. But we need the highest kind of counsel. Heroes in fact. Our national treasures. Do you understand?”

Greg blinked several times in disbelief at the pudgy, smirking face of the man in front of him. For a moment he did not care how long, he stared with severity, and felt like he was initiated into an unfamiliar world totally devoid of all values men before him considered highly. It is a world without principles, operated by a new generation of thick-skinned people oblivious of such--- it made him sick to his stomach.

“Say,” continued Mr. Ed. “ thirty of the Bespectacled One or fifteen of the Trio. Your call.”

“But I don’t have that much.”

“That is still negotiable, my friend.”

“I don’t …”

“I’ll have my secretary talk to you. Good day.”

Greg rushed to the nearby elevator and walked out of the building, preparing himself to weep at the concrete sidewalks. His mind refused to bear all that it detested in so short a time with so great a price. What have we become, he asked himself, we who have descended from brave, noble men who refused all forms of oppression, who embraced freedom with all their might, have become a nation of thieves. He wished he could laugh loudly and at the same time escape the embarrassment of uncivil behavior. He being a Caviteño, gave in to the desire to mock all those who have offered their blood to fight all those who tried to corrupt the Filipino race--- to what end? We have done it ourselves! His great-grandfathers would have laughed with him in bitterness and contempt and above all, in loss of everything they hold dear. Well, trying to comfort himself, at least the chubby Mr. Ed made it a point to dress nicely.

As he went to a nearby waiting shed with his right hand inside his pocket counting uselessly the thirty pesos left, he noticed a little girl clothed with nothing as much as a sack crying loudly on a gutter in a vain attempt to be noticed by her mother. However, Greg’s attention was caught by the sudden thunderous approach of a careening jeepney hungry for its fare, and found his unwilling body respond to the weight of emotional alarm that stirred inside him. As if by reflex, he pushed the girl with all his might, out of harm’s way. He heard a thud and there was nothing more.

“I’m sorry.”

Greg found himself looking at the eyes of a child, in all its innocence, tears suspended like dew drops on the side of her cheeks. The sun now was beginning to set, its waning light stroking the shadows of the concrete pavement into reddish monochrome, lulling the evening to an early sleep. This is it, thought Greg as he prepared himself, this is what they were prepared to die for.

“It’s ok. Everything will be alright.”

The Mathematician

National Statistics Office, 4 late pm
Life was told in volumes in this part of the city. People of differing classes, in all walks of life, hurry the concrete pavements chasing pieces of required documents pertinent to their purposes: birth certificates, marriage papers, death… the countless encyclopedia of human identity. More importantly for most, despite their seeming endless wandering, theirs is the spirit that longs for home.
“Good afternoon then.”
“Thank you.”
The young man, after receiving his leave, decided to stay awhile for cigarettes. He walked with precision, a precision acquired by employees dealing with significance and deviations, towards the dilapidated waiting shed especially designed by the government to be just so. A billboard showing a long forgotten official(with a trim and proper message of gratitude for his monumental accomplishment) was peeling at the very edges in the area where a smile ends and a laugh begins. The sun was beginning to set, west, 4:37 late pm; a lifetime before rush hour.
“Hello.”
The greeting was so sudden it took a while for the young man to realize who gave it. Beside him lay a beggar, not so old as he appears and not typically untidy so as to draw contempt from most cosmopolite. In fact he was clean; far better than the newly painted wall behind him.
“Good afternoon, sir…”
“Ah, you called me sir,” interrupted the old man. “Your perception is more acute than your senses.”
“I…”

The young man blinked hard, unbelieving at the cultured words that came from one thought of as uneducated.
“I’m sorry,” said he to the beggar. “Do I know you?”
“I’m afraid not, but you are going to make the same error I did.”
“I apologize, I must go.”
“Yes, you are about to give up.”

The twilight sky took a little longer going through its play of colors, clouds thinning as they go, as the young gentleman came face to face with his existence in so simple a statement --- truth that is.
“I know,” said the old man at length. “I have summed up everything.”
“I’m lost.”
“True, nowhere far than near.”
“I…We tried everything, but nothing worked.”
“Because you miscalculated.”

They fell silent for a moment. And for a moment, the streets were deserted; they were alone on the sidewalks, under a dim lamp post now flickering to life.
“You know why I love numbers,” said the old man after much pondering. “ They cannot lie.”

For the first time, the young man saw the worn out beggar smile. It was a youthful smile. And for a long time in his life, he began to somehow understand the secrets of the universe, of real happiness, the follies of youth, and the summation of an equation he is yet to decipher. Just this thought calmed him.
“Why me. Old man?”
“Because mathematicians were young once.”

Coming home that night, Apartment 22, 10:35, long divisions of infinite numbers filled his thoughts, occupying the better part of his consciousness. The lights of a passing car broke in prisms as it streamed through the blinds, briefly illuminating the peaceful face of his wife, now asleep. Only then did he began to weigh how much he really love her.

The Solitude of the Filipino Writer

In all the branches of art, be it in the realms of science or aesthetics, no artist is more alone, more isolated, than a writer--- the lone lover of the written word. And never more so than the Filipino writer.
A writer, when viewed in the perspective of the creative whole, enjoys, or rather destined to, a peculiar solitude that is both a necessity and a curse. A necessity because tranquility, as most of the best authors of our time are aware of, is the great helper which catalyzes the transition from the primordial idea inherent in the thinking process to the eventual materialization of the written word, or the spoken verses in plays and theatre. As Alfred Russel Wallace said it best, “In my solitude, I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death.” Without being alone, a writer cannot think.
On the other spectrum of idea, loneliness of isolation is as much a curse as it is a friend. Compared to his fellow enthusiasts in the art of painting, a writer doesn’t have that immediate gratification of seeing the warm colors of his work. For a longer time than most, he finds it hard to enjoy the endless progression of commas, periods, apostrophes, phrases and ellipses. Unlike a sculptor, who at least exerts the necessary strength on his works that in turn as much a fun physical activity(with much endorphins to boot), like hiking or strolling down a park; a writer is ultimately bound, in his chair, pen and paper( or in our time a desktop) to one of the most sedentary endeavors known to man. Whichever way one sees it, a writer’s solitude is a grim requirement he has to embrace as well as to endure.
In all these, however, I find the Filipino writer most unfortunate if such a class of seclusion exists in the world of literature. The solitude of the Filipino writer not only is isolated in the process of creative thinking and writing, but characteristically, and more depressing so, extends to publishing, marketing and overall readership. A Filipino author, if you must forgive the pessimism, is like fish in dead water in an equally dead Philippine literary market. The feeling of hopelessness is magnified to infinity whenever I visit bookstores lined with aging local books, excellent reads at that, in shelves that nary a spirit has touched. Compared with the shelves of its foreign counterparts which enjoy a healthy readership, full pockets, and best-selling labels on their front cover; local shelves look like a decaying graveyard of great Filipino writers, National artists, and great insiders of the Filipino soul. Ask a fellow, a colleague or a friend, if he knows one local author or has read one of his works; lucky for you if he replies F. Sionil Jose or Luwalhati Bautista; but ask anyone if he has read Da Vinci Code and you might as well become one of those televangelist for surplus of followers.
I do not consider myself pessimistic, more like an observer perhaps. I do consider myself a lover of the art of the written word; and to see so many great writers before me I consider heroes, after enduring so much isolation in their craft, are still in solitude out there with their books in a sea of that bloody arena euphemistically called the global market, makes me ask questions like: What went wrong? Is the Filipino writer alone?

Finding Sunday Morning

“Where are you going?”
An expanse of green filtered the golden yellow light of sunrise, the morning dew reflecting rainbows on windows of parked cars and drive-by delis. Bayview area early 6:45 .

“I’m going to find Sunday morning,” said an old man stopping to catch a breath. He was running on the concrete pavement instead of joining the early joggers trampling the soft Bermuda fields.

“ Sunday morning?” asked the young man with a half-smile. “ What’s wrong with today’s?”
“ But today is Saturday.”
“ Yes, I know,” quipped the young man suppressing a laugh, “ I’m a businessman, you see, it’s my business to know what day it is or I’ll miss work, and if I miss work my family goes hungry.”
The old man looked at him in an odd way. He was old in all corners of appearance, except his eyes. His breathing spoke of miles and miles of road behind him but his knees held a pride the young man could not understand. A code, perhaps.

“Saturday morning is for rest,” replied the old man at length. “ It is beautiful but it must rest.”
“What about Monday?”
“Monday morning is for work.”
“And Tuesday?”
“Tuesday morning is for perseverance.”
“And Wednesday?”
“Wednesday is for pride.”
“Thursday?”
“For hope.”
“Friday?”
“For expectations and fulfillment.”

The young man was baffled by the meaning of the replies. He only meant not to take the queries seriously. Obviously the old man is not drunk for he speaks the syntax of sobriety. Too sober. No one can be too sober this early. Saturday morning.

“I must get going my boy,” the old man started. “I woke up and she was gone Sunday Morning.”
Slowly he got up and smiled then turned his face towards the road, the soft sea breeze blowing silver white strands of hair. Purpose filled a pose of passion in so frail a body, yet the struggle is something as beautiful seen only in youth of meaning.

The young man finished his laps around the park before turning his way towards home. He felt lighter than usual. Endorphins, said his physical therapist, the neurotransmitter that makes happiness in man. If only they come in bottles.

“So how was your jogging?” asked his wife at the breakfast table.
“Surreal. Can I ask you a question?” he hesitated, but went on. “What’s with Sunday morning?”
“You mean you don’t know?”

He expected his wife to be baffled or at least surprised at the inappropriateness of the question. Was it in the daily papers? Maybe he was too busy not listening. He found himself telling his wife about the strange encounter at Bayview early 6:45 . No, he found himself telling a fairytale to his 5 yr old daughter, sparking her young imagination to life, about life. He found himself looking at the youthful face of his wife, S_______, remembering her laugh that night on the giant ferris wheel in a faraway kingdom, just her and the stars behind her. He saw a glimpse of sunrise bathing the green foliage with golden yellow light, almost forgotten. Where are you going?

“Dearest, Sunday Morning is for Love.”

Love is not love,
Which alters when it alteration finds;
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark.
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

Mike's log 6:23AM 6/21/06

Early mornings should be the happiest calm of the day. I'm a late starter, so it suits me to just sit here for a while.
The memories of my past keep floating in the background. I carry you around still.
Anyway off I go. Another day another start. Life is made up of a series of moments, a string of pearl drops, leading to a meaningful whole--- like a pearl necklace. I wait, I fight for this reason.

Man could not go on without a dream. My dream was to make her the happiest woman ever to live this planet. Now I should move on, even with this nagging emptiness inside me.

The world awaits me. The morning longs for my new journey.

I shall become the best.

All is good and quiet. Times like this don't come very often. In this world accustomed to technology, the bliss of just standing on the grassy hills of Carlota---waiting for the sun to come--- comes to me as one of the most fundamental happiness of man. There is a certain metaphor in the forgotten phenomenon of sunrise. It takes 8 minutes for sunlight to reach a dark corner of earth. Eight light minutes--- eight months for man--- for me, to emerge from darkness. Certainly it is darkest before dawn, looking back, it doesn't matter--- the sun is finally here.

It feels like I've slept for many months, awakened only by the soft chirping from the pine trees, the moist scent of morning dews on leaves of grass, softly kicking the moss, still unsure in walking alone, unaided. I am far from the memories of Manila now, that was nothing. This is the soul of my life, and everything is giving me the courage to face the light. For all things are still the same since I left, but they are singing a long forgotten song, alltogether different and familiar.

I am the prodigal son of my being. I thought forgetting my own myself to become part of another is the key to the wonders of this world. For the time being it was, I will always remember the good such a great thing as Love has brought. But as it is, Love is sometimes too much it becomes an anaesthetic to those who can't bear to understand. It makes a soul numb--- for a reason of course: so that it would not break itself apart.

So now I return, my heart prepared for the consequences of my mistakes. I am prepared to honor our pact--- I always have. All I ask is to spare her of your wrath, as your son I humbly ask this. She deserves all the happiness in this world

This is my beginning, a beginning of all things new. And I vow to fight for those who love me without end.