Missing the Marapait

Perhaps the unwanted visitor named “Pepeng" delayed the much-awaited appearance of sunflowers. Their yellow blooms cover the vacant lots of Baguio that haven't been overbuilt yet. I hope it is just a delay, not a no-show. In the meantime, I’ll content myself with my friend Toottee Chanco-Pacis’s version of the last-quarter sunflowers. She calls this piece "Love the Sun." A fellow flower lover says give them two weeks; they'll come out. Yes, the green stalks are still very much around like cock-eyed optimists.

Sunflower Season

“Don’t you think we have a bit of paradise here?” Sr. Emma Paloma, ICM, asked , her face awash with a smile and her inner sunshine. I looked out the sliding capiz windows of the Teahouse at the ICM House of Prayer, and there was a framed view of a peaceful garden, all dewy and with shafts of afternoon sunlight falling on the pine tree branches.

All over Baguio’s vacant hillsides, sunflowers blaze in the color of hope. They bloom untended at this time of the year, lovelier than a thousand Van Goghs as a former city resident describes them. And as the temperature dips further, it won’t be long when the poinsettia leaves begin reddening. Emma is right about bits of paradise scattered here and there. I can only capture a weak impression.