Missing the secret garden

(Take 2, after losing my original draft)

I've been revisiting photo files from the year 2015. The year was personally memorable because I was taken ill for quite a while and confined at length at The Medical City.

When I returned to the world that was still spinning at its usual pace despite my prolonged depressive episode, I wasn't allowed to go out of the house unless I was chaperoned. My usual companion and chokaran then was Macky, the yaya of my then four-year old grandchild Kai. (While Macky, short for Mackenzie, kept me company, my mother, who has since passed on, and my daughter Kimi minded Kai who was pulled out of school in Baguio to be with me.)

So being housebound or being under strict house arrest is nothing new to me. When I was allowed a little freedom of movement, Macky accompanied me to the lecture of balikbayan poet Luisa A. Igloria at De La Salle University. Not only was the lecture substantive that I was able to compose an article out of Dr. Igloria's lecture notes, the event was well organized by Shirley O. Lua of DLSU. I remember the savory adobo served.

So my new life, post-hospitalization, revolved around weekend trips to Baguio and weekdays spent correcting my students' papers, preparing lessons, chasing after story sources (life of a freelancer).

Rolly in a huddle with his UP Baguio colleagues Del Tolentino (partly hidden) and Rey Rimando

It was around this time when my husband Rolly Fernandez thought of converting an idle patch in our Baguio property into what we called "a secret garden" dedicated to Kai. He had a truck haul in the pebbles, which were scattered and arranged neatly on the ground. He tamed the wildness by planting shrubs and flowering bushes. Then he invited our friend Rey Rimando, a retired math prof at UP Baguio and full-time gardener in La Union, for a visit.

Rey being Rey, he had opinions on everything from the foot path to the watering system. He offered advice on what plants thrived in the shade and what liked the sun. Rolly nodded, but knowing him, I knew he was separating chaff from the grain.

Name that wildflower.

Since then, the garden became the final stop where Kai and I parked ourselves after our morning walks in the neighborhood. Her paternal grandparents presented her with a garden set complete with a parasol. While we chattered and took pictures of the flowers, Rolly would join us with his second or third mug of coffee. We had Baguio's immense blue, blue sky for our roof.

Kai stops to pose for a picture at a neighbor's garden.

I miss the little garden and the refuge it offered. As I encode these words, I'm pale from want of sun and Vitamin D. Once the lockdown is lifted, you know which direction I'm headed for: my true North.

Meanwhile, there is comfort in the verse of Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz:

My generation was lost. Cities too. And nations.
But all this a little later. Meanwhile, in the window, a swallow

#LockdownDiaries

Feasting on our lives

I have Edna Z. Manlapaz to thank for a copy of this poem. It was the memento she left us with last Friday when the First Draft group of writers met for a long-delayed reunion. It happened to be the birth month of Gilda Cordero Fernando, Fe Arriola and myself so we each got a Costa Brava cake from Mariel Francisco. Mariel made sure we each had a photo with Gilda to remember the day by.

Then we did feasting while we shared stories of lives, work, health. Edna's choice of poem was apropos.

LOVE AFTER LOVE
By Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger
who was your self.
Give wine, give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger
who has loved you all your life...

Sit. Feast on your life.

With Gilda Cordero Fernando

Poem from a gentle soul

Of the many anniversary greetings Rolly and I received last month, none touched me more than Bimboy Peñaranda's. His note went: "All I can offer you and Rolly is a poem I completed today (see attachment). You're on the road to recovery and more discoveries. Warmst regards to Rolly. Sige, Bimboy"

I asked permission to quote from it, but I'm running it in its glory-be fullness. He said he'd read it to Rolly and me and our friends someday. This is as good as reading it to all out there. Maraming salamat, Bimboy!

Rolly at dinner with Jo and Bimboy Peñaranda in Dauis, Bohol, in September last year. We had just come from the successful launch of Bimboy's poetry collection Lucid Lightning at the Divine Word College. Photos by Babeth Lolarga




GOOD MORNING

I feel like a window possessed by sparrows,
The perfect stranger who walks the distance
To a waiting trance, who drinks sunlight
From a cup made silver by imagination.

I step out into the garden to greet
The monsoon breeze, like a flag unfurled,
Ready to welcome and embrace an anthem
Emerging from a pond of silence.

I set the dogs loose, clean up their mess
After pee, poop and unabashed play.
The turtle can stroll later on the lawn
To impart lessons on careful attention.

I turn earthbound, loosen the soil:
Allow the roots of plants to breathe
The color of sky, hear the news from bees,
Affirm the presence of lightning in storms.

I’m inclined to meet certain deadlines,
Fulfill basic elements beyond the mysterious:
Payment of bills, weekly groceries, house repairs
To relax the tense walls of our existence.

I’m a detective of unexplained laws of nature.
I investigate why the universe is the body of god,
Why we never yield the flower of hidden bliss
To the passion of each passing revolution.

My wife thinks we are seeds of light
Casting shadows on each other at home,
Performing duties without reservation.
We bloom while listening to our children.


Victor Peñaranda
July 27. 2015
Las Piñas

The skies over Bohol's Chocolate Hills one morning in the last year

Poetry in stillness

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry." — Emily Dickinson

Photos of Bric-a-Brac the book by Babeth Lolarga

While going through the heaps of digitized and re-sized photos saved on the hard drive of this computer that I'm using, I saw or "read" the book art made by Baguio artist and scholar Del Tolentino for his "Bric-a-Brac" exhibition over a year ago at Mt Cloud Bookshop. I had written about that show for VeraFiles.org (See http://verafiles.org/the-playful-the-serious-collide-in-del-tolentinos-book-art/)

These are the "out-takes" from that article, the photos not sent and that stayed behind.

While again "flipping" through the pages of the the book Bric-a-Brac (scrolling through the photos, I mean), I realized how the biography of a person can be told through a series of still life. There is the thoughtfulness behind the selection of what bric, what brac should go into a home. Clearly the man is an aesthete, too --from the books to the bookends to the lamps to each exquisite piece of china, textile, wooden figurine, basketry, earthenware.

There is also the intellectual history of the person in the book titles that remain on display for he is also known as someone who generously gives away the books he has read. But what remains behind--there's the telling tale.

We always thank writers, whether from the classic canon or those from the margins, who shaped what we were and are today. My sister wrote recently to say how she overstayed by choice with Nancy Drew creator Carolyn Keene for the sheer pleasure of it.

I thank a living book artist for "writing", through his images and some words, that there is poetry in the unnoticed spots and swirls on a leaf, in the profile of a wayang kulit puppet, in the light bouncing off the cheek of a waxed mask...and more!

Leaves on grass

Highland living, if you steer clear of the smoggy Central Business District, permits walks. I take them with company or alone. Alone I can pace myself, pause, take note of what I tend to overlook. The morning's discovery are these curling, drying leaves on green grass. Looking at them and the shadows cast by trees unseen in the picture makes my mind churn. The thought is this--if left alone (not swept into a pile and thrown in the biodegradable bin), these fallen leaves will be absorbed by the earth, will enrich it and allow for new growth. Nothing spectacularly original about that thought. This "dying" with a purpose reminds me of Wendell Berry's exhortation: "Practice resurrection." To fellow blogger Padma Perez I owe another discovery: poet Berry and his simple yet powerful words.

Amy, Diane and Emily

While reading Manila Bulletin's interview with novelist and recent Manila visitor Amy Tan just yesterday after it came out Monday, I took note of this interesting question asked: "Is there any person, living or dead, you want to chat with to write their biography or a book based on their story?"

Her reply: "Emily Dickinson because every one of her poems was so profound. Her poems are very deep and emotional but not in a predictable, sentimental way. I want to know, how did you have these thoughts?"

Today I happened upon a profile of actor Diane Keaton in a back issue of The New York Times (online edition, of course). She was asked what her favorite literary genre is. She then asked if quotes count as a literary genre or sub-genre because she hoards them. One such quote that she had scribbled on the back of an envelope are these lines from Emily Dickinson:

"In this short life that only lasts an hour, 
How much — how little — is within our power."

Coincidence? Synchronicity? A nudge--but towards what direction?

It's uncanny but as I encode these words, the fog in Baguio is rolling in, and I am reminded that I must bring in the laundry from the clothesline before they get damp all over again. I think that is today's message. That's the direction I am taking after I upload this blog for today.

By the way, "I must go in, the fog is rising" were supposedly the last words Ms. Dickinson said. A fitting thought before we all observe Dia de Muertos that has somehow been trivialized by a commercialized Halloween. Funny how of all the images of Ms. Dickinson, it's the one above that captured and captivated me totally.

Those last words won't be mine yet. And I'm not about to spook myself while alone in the house.

Thank you just the same, ladies.

War Torn Mouth by Babeth Lolarga - PHILIEN Ms. JoCas

"War Torn Mouth" is a poem I wrote from the '70s. I'm still wondering how the makers of this video and song tracked it down. Perhaps from a back issue of The Literary Apprentice?Nevertheless, what a pleasant surprise to accidentally discover that this old poem is restored through song and video and that it is speaking to another generation.

Full disclosure: The makers of the song and video are all unknown to me. I want to thank them just the same.

Heavensent on a Weepy Sunday

From my Facebook inbox comes this Sunday gift, perfect reading for rainy weather that’s keeping most of us indoors. The letter comes from Heather O’Hara of The Watermark Poetry Group which anyone signed into FB can join:

One of our members, Joan Wheaton, recently sent me an email with a most beautiful message for poets… I have just posted it on our discussion board and want to make sure that all of you have an opportunity to read it—it is exquisite!

TOPIC: An Exquisite Moment That Breaks Boundaries of Thought
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=81193947306&ref=mf#/topic.php?uid=81193947306&topic=11415

Also, my dear friend, Rick Beneteau—co-founder of Ten Million Clicks for Peace—is looking for poetry on peace to add to a newly created peace blog. If any of you have poems about world peace that you would like to submit to Rick for consideration you may send them to me or directly to Rick via his Facebook email.

Wishing you all a magnificent weekend!


Warmest Regards
Heather K. O’Hara
Co-founder, The Watermark Poetry Group
HEAVEN #3211 An Exquisite Moment That Breaks Boundaries of Thought, September 9, 2009

God said:

How you seek poetry in your life. No matter how hardened you may be, you seek poetry. The sun shines for all. The stars sparkle for all. Apple trees blossom for you. And you seek more than the eyes can see. You seek that which you don't quite remember, and yet you seek it. You may seek you know not what.

Whatever you seek, you are seeking poetry. You are seeking an exquisite moment that breaks boundaries of thought.

Poetry has you jump from one word to another with a remarkable jolt. From one world to another. How you want to jump out of daily life and enter the world of poetry. No matter how obscure a poem may be, it makes your heart leap. For a moment a metaphor carries you over a river from one bank to the next. For one moment a metaphor takes you from one galaxy to another.

A metaphor is the magic carpet you ride on. A metaphor switches you from one subway to another in midstream. One moment you were lollygagging along, and the next you are transported.

Everyone wants elves and fairies to exist. The staunchest realist in modern life wants to be surprised. No matter how close to the ground someone stays, he also wants to take flight. Everyone has had enough of the mundane.

It is not so much that you want to escape the dailiness of life. It is more that you want to return to an escapade you were in the middle of and yet seemingly forgot all about. Just as a name stays under the surface and you cannot remember it, the name stirs within you, and one day it pops to the surface.

Is it a metaphor that the sun is your heart, or that your heart is the sun? Is it a metaphor that your cheeks become roses? Is it a metaphor that you sail across a sea of life? Are metaphors perhaps more true than that the grass is green and the sky is blue?

Facts are details, and you seek Wholeness.

More exists than what you have seen, and you seek that more. You are entitled to it. You are supposed to have it. Your life is more than the stew cooking on top of the stove.

You not only seek to see wonders, you seek wonders to perform. However illusive that which you seek may be, it is Truth you are seeking. The greatest-seeming exaggeration has more Truth than the most staggering fact.

The cow did jump over the moon, and your heart does leap over ordinary life.

Ordinary life has its wonder, and ordinary life is good. And yet ordinary life is not all there is. There is an indefinable more. It cannot be defined, and yet it can be located.

Your heart is a garden. Your mind is a pool. You leap from one to another and back again. But, oh, the leap, beloveds. Oh, the leap.

You are one who transcends the mundane. The mundane is simply not enough for you. No matter how wonderful, no matter how fulfilling, there is that within you that seeks a greater horizon. You seek a greater horizon because you are bound to have it. If you must be bound, be bound to that which is boundless. Break boundaries. Break even the boundaries of words.

There is a blaze of light in your heart. There is something in your heart that you are leaping over. Your heart must be the moon even as it is the sun. Impossibilities become true. You are a leaper, and now you leap. You are a reaper, and now you reap.

Permanent Link: http://www.heavenletters.org/an-exquisite-moment-that-breaks-boundaries-of-thought.html

"Resthouse," watercolor by Babeth Lolarga. (Photo by IAN DAUIGOY)

Perfect Timing

On July 26, 1984, a singing quartet serenaded a newly married couple, one Babeth Lolarga and one Rolly Fernandez, at their reception at Nielsen Tower on Makati Ave. The musicians just rendered two songs: "Bayan Ko," which moved their godfather Armando J. Malay to stand up and raise a clenched fist all throughout the singing, and "Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree," a lighthearted ditty that took the edge off the first song.

Forward to the same day and month 25 years later. There were more than 25 songs sung that evening at Cafe Juanita. Days before, the fretful newsman in Fernandez worried that GMA might just spoil everybody's plans, including ours, by declaring a state of emergency at her hopefully last SONA. His fear never came to pass. But six days later, the death of Mrs. Aquino began galvanizing Filipinos again to unite against injustice, corruption and the assorted excesses of GMA. And once again I see yellow ribbons wherever I turn--around pine trees, at the Volante Pizza parlor's posts, etc.,--and the cheesy song about receiving a letter telling me I'll soon be free is so very in again.

One of our anniversary singers, journalist Vergel O. Santos, once winked at our First Draft group of women writers, saying: "Don't you just think that getting married is all about perfect timing?

These poems from Edel Garcellano's blog www.theworksofedelgarcellano.wordpress.com do not quite follow the line cuts he did. My stubborn computer refuses to follow the cuts and stanzas that Edel used to fashion these three verses. So they appear here like prose poems (sorry about that, Edel):

7.

A.
Anniversary

In a cafe, 
they are all smiles
 as she confides 
over the microphone
 she & her groom 
leave well enough 
each other alone – 
neither too near
 nor too far –
 unlike igneous rocks 
that upon close contact 
spark a fire.
 Goethe’s
elective affinity of desire? 
This: 
the secret of the feast
 that stood the text 
of their own conjugal times.
 & If the merrymaking 
among friends,
 who open doors
 for the bride’s flair,
 tells a story 
for all to learn,
it must have been
 Solomonic 
for a bonding
 to steer clear
 of short-lived passion,
embracing instead
 the cool danger
 of reason.
 Gold medal
 for him 
visible with ascetic grin?
 Applause for her 
who collates goodwill
 of kith & kin?
 A toast to hearts 
who beam
 at the fairy tale
 rendition 
worked out 
with delicate precision.

B.

At 11pm 
the celebration 
was almost 
done
 but the singers 
were still belting out 
nostalgia 
as if they had 
just begun
 to feel the heat
 of fun.
 Outside Cafe Juanita
 of post American
 Tertulia,
vibrant 
with old world air
 & yellow lights
 from lamps 
wrapped by 
silk gowns,
the rain had stopped,
emitting a scent
of late-night 
cool.
& after the formal
 settling of the bill,
 rearranging of chairs,
plucking of wine bottles 
off the tipsy tables, 
the couple 
would drive home
 a few blocks away, 
as if overwhelmed
 by love’s 
strange declaration.

C.

They came,
singly or in packs, 
to be with the couple
 despite the heavy 
rain.
 They, who stood 
through thick & thin 
of accounted years:
 laughed at the same
 tried jokes;
 exchanged warm toasts;
 heard the chorus
 of ersatz troubadours 
that drew 
the night to a close.
What is there
 to expect 
after the celebration 
of beatitudes?
 Another 25 years
 of magical struggle
 & passionate hope.

Photo by ANNA LEAH SARABIA.

For the Love of Words

The SMS from Ed Maranan read: “Hey, BUTCH! CONGRATULATIONS! Wow! Painom!” In a flash I thought it was a missent message. I returned to the work we were doing in our web design class. On my way out of the UP Baguio campus, who should I see coming up the covered walk but Butch Macansantos himself with that cat-ate-the-canary look on his face?

“Did you just win something? What is it?” I cried without so much as a salutary “Hi!” He nodded and said telegraphically, “Yes. First prize. Palanca.”

“Poetry?” I asked, a question that on hindsight stated the obvious. He nodded, and it was as if the clouds parted and the long-missed sun shone on his face. (We’ve been having six days of rain.) We shook hands, I managed to pat his back, and I rode to town with two packs of peanuts to chew on while thinking how fortunate these two chaps, Ed and Butch, have been in the last few weeks.

After the second Baguio Writers Group (BWG) workshop for the youth in July, Butch, the main panelist, could have been borne out of the Pine Room on the shoulders of the participants, mainly college students from all over Baguio and Benguet. I’m not exaggerating because I keep the feedback forms. (He is shown wearing his trademark pullover in a photo above taken by EV ESPITIRU and awarding a book on contemporary poetry to workshopper Sacha Weygan after a raffle.) In last Tuesday's “Tanghal Panitikan 1” at UP, he gave impassioned readings of “Balsa” in his native Chavacano and “Raft” in English. There’s no other way to read one’s work, except the way he did, which was feelingly.

Ed has been tucking one prize/recognition in his belt after another (the Writer’s Prize followed by the Balagtas award). And he has been generous in sending us links to interesting websites he visits, including where to find in YouTube a video of the Puppini Sisters who popularized “Mr. Sandman.” If he can trawl all those sites, one BWG member surmises he must be online all day and most of the night so where in heaven’s name does he find the time, and how in heck does he get into that reflective mood, to compose so much poetry and prose with all the distractions the Internet offers?

I know the answer before Butch and Ed can say the “D” words: discipline, dedication. The former is hardly computer savvy and writes all his drafts in a spiral notebook (the Golden Gate brand when I last peeked in early 2007). There’s a lesson here somewhere, but strike me with lightning first before I proceed to my next paragraph.

The title of today’s blog is from Butch’s dedication written on the flyleaf of my copy of his book The Words & Other Poems (University of the Philippines Press 1997). I attended the mass launching of books by UP Press at the National Book Fair on Sept. 9 that year. I was seated beside poet Luisa Igloria. Butch came in, limping slightly, sat on our row and said he had just gotten off the bus from Baguio, crossed the EDSA overpass and walked to get to SM Megamall. I presented my book for signing. Without missing a beat, he wrote: “Dear Babeth, Yours for the love of words—and of mountains. The gusty gout, Francis ‘Butch’ Macansantos”.

When we next ran into each other months later, he half-laughingly told me I was the very first person to present his first book for autographing. He waited a long, long while before another buyer of his book followed suit. Ah, poets, where art thy readers?

Nowhere Woman's Place in the Sun

For openers, let me present the (formerly mad) nowhere woman who walked me through the process of setting up this blog. The following text also served as my introduction to her at the closing rituals of the second writing workshop the Baguio Writers Group conducted for students and young teachers at the Baguio Country Club yesterday. The group chose her to be the guest speaker primarily because of her youth (role model type) and in spite of it (she has written over a million characters with spaces).
She comes from a distinguished matrilineal lineage: her great-grandmother, Pilar Hidalgo Lim, was one of the first suffragists; her grandmother Gloria came from a family of educators that founded the Mapua Institute of Technology; her own mother Adelaida is a writer, culinary artist and cultural leader of Baguio City. The speaker herself was most probably conceived and, this next detail I know as a fact, born in this city.
I first learned of her existence from a series of photographs exhibited by her father Butch Perez at the Main Gallery of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in the mid-’70s. The photos showed her mother pushing a pram along the length of Session Road one Holy Week when vehicular traffic was forbidden on the main road and there was no island dividing it. Her father took the photos from the other side of the street.
I met her again in 1990 at the Baguio Convention Center. She went up to me, introduced herself and asked at what age I wrote the poems in my first book The First Eye (published by Kalikasan Press with a small print run of 200). Her mother bought a copy earlier for P60, and it must have reached the daughter’s hands.
I returned to Manila elated by that encounter and told my editor of The Sunday Times Magazine then, Rosario “Chato” Garcellano, about this slip of a girl of around 16 who had read my poems. Chato said I had connected.
Connecting is writing’s ultimate aim. Literary prizes, fellowships and writers’ residencies local and abroad, publication in prestigious journals, magazines and anthologies—all these are fine. But ultimately, connecting to the reader is what it’s all about.
In 1995, our speaker and I would be together again, along with one of our panelists, Luchie Maranan, as fellows of the Wika ng Kababaihan writing workshop. She wrote a memorable poem about the process of childbirth. I can still recall her reference to her waters bursting just before her baby popped out.
I want to stress that today’s speaker started out like you, too. Perhaps she was lucky to have had a head start because at age seven or thereabouts, her lolo required her to write a few paragraphs to narrate what happened to her during the course of a day. This is an example of the rigor, accuracy, precision and discipline that writing demands, qualities that our panelists have been talking about for the past two Sundays.
Our speaker has gone on to apply all these in her field of specialization—anthropology, particularly indigenous people’s rights and environmental issues.
Without further ado, here is Padma Perez!
(So to soon-to-be Dr. Perez--she is finishing her dissertation for the University of Leiden in The Netherlands--salamuchas [contraction of salamat and muchas gracias] for yesterday’s pep talk to the aspiring writers from our beloved Baguio and Benguet and the assist in putting up this blog in between mundane but necessary Monday chores.)