The Hottest Days in America

The sun is burning in Menifee. It scorched even the young leaves of the avocado on the clay pots in the yard. My face and arms are burning in the searing heat.  I go back inside.

AN, IMITATION, OF, JOSE, GARCIA, VILLA

Water Lily

She, too, was, a river, maiden
Unreachable, mysterious, secretive
The, shyness, of, youth, unbearable
A, deep, deep, road, to, nowhere
Too, late, the, speaking, voice
Too, late, the shattering, rain
We, could, have, possessed, paradise,
In, the, morning,
Side, of, the, mountain,
Forever, together.

***

"It is when we try to grapple with other men's intimate needs that we perceive how incomprehensible are the beings that share with us the sight of the stars and the warmth of the sun."--Joseph Conrad

Black Friday Bout

Dead man versus Praying Catholics and Preying Yellows and Reds

Winner: The Filipino People and the Rule of Law

It was a 9-5 verdict of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. The dead man was allowed to be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani in Taguig City, Metro Manila. Two reasons were given: 1. He was a former soldier. 2. He was a former president of the country.

     

Tribu Paraiso, Diadi, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines

   
     *****

     They invested their time and energy, nay, ego-minds, in an activity that exposed them to ridicule and all sorts of reactions that, it appears, irritate them.

     Their arguments against the burial of a dead man have become irrelevant.These discourses are mere expletives, routinely parroted by like-minded individuals and speak of the kind of persons that they are--unreconstructed human impostors enslaved by time-bounded psychological thinking of simpletons.

     President-elect Rodrigo Duterte is more circumspect,  kind and human. He should be admired for giving closure to the situation that has divided the country for the past years--the burial of the late President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani.

***

Memory Boosters

1. avocado
2. Green tea
3. Oily fish: salmon, mackerel, sardines, herring
4. blueberries
5. dark, leafy vegetables like spinach and broccoli
 6. Nuts and chocolates

POST THAT DREW REACTIONS

     The blogger has always maintained that the past and the future are illusions. The past may illuminate but on the whole it does not serve a purpose. That is also true to the future which is not there at the moment. What is important is the Now, the present moment, where we exercise power and have our Being, that inscrutable entity that is there but has yet to be discovered.

     Where is this Being? Inside of us? Outside of us?

     Here is an inspiration from the spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, quoted by March S. Allen in his preface to the former's "The Power of Now," published in 1999.

     "...Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature..."

    Yes, as spiritual books that include that of Mr. Tolle, say, we are all subjects to psychological time with its emotions of anger and hate and all that is negative. Does love feature here? We don't know.

     Here is my FB post three days or so ago:

     I am honoring this present moment by swallowing hook, line and sinker that "ultimately, proof lies not in intellectual arguments, but being touched in some way by the sacred within and without."

     The quotation comes from the preface of the above-mentioned spiritual book.

The Padsan River in Laoag City, Philippines, looking east towards
the Cordillera mountain ranges. Photo by blogger from the Gilbert Bridge.

OPENING WINDOWS FOR REBIRTH

 Let go the person you used to be, says writer Lama Surya Das. In fact, "Letting Go The Persons You Used To Be" is the title of his book  which advises that if we want to change and move on, we have to do away with attachments that impede our way out of the miserable life we have been living. These attachments include beliefs, people, places, possessions like books, even the house we have been living for a number of years. It is these attachments that cause our pain and sorrows, he said.

Ilokano writing icon Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili of the University of Hawaii at Manoa (in blue)
in a meeting with an Ilokano writing group at the Mandarin restaurant in San Fernando City, La Union.


EDSA AS BAGGAGE OF MEMORIES

EDSA I was not our metamorphosis.
Filipinos bungled it all after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos by putting into power Cory Aquino who merely sat on her asses in Malacanang and spent precious presidential time plotting  revenge against the dictator she believed caused the assassination of her husband.
Benigno Aqiuino, Jr., bless his soul, was only a loquacious politician who wanted to replace Marcos. He joined forces with the former caudillo of the Communist Party of the Philippines, that ordered the bombing of the miting de avance of the Liberal Party in Plaza Miranda. Aquino bartered our claims to Sabah to the then Malaysian Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir in exchange for the latter's support in toppling Marcos.

Cory and the presidents who came after her including his son Aquino 111 entrenched the powerful oligarchy that catapulted her into power and the mistaken notion that her husband was a hero.

Or has EDSA entered into the realm of myth? What happened to the heroes? Or were they heroes?

PHILIPPINE LAUNCHING OF "UMAYKA MANEN, GANGGANNAET/COME AGAIN, STRANGER" EXPANDED VERSION

We look forward to a Philippine launching of the expanded version of "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger", an anthology of Ilokano and English poems. It will be in the summer.

The slim collection was first published in the Philippines in 1998, with introduction by the late regional director of the Philippine Information Agency based in the Ilocos administrative capital of San Fernando City in La Union.

Dr. Aurelio Solver Agcaoili, coordinator of the Ilokano program at the Univesity of Hawaii at Manoa, made a critical introduction of the expanded version.

Mr. Alcantara's introduction will also be included in the new book, in the last pages.

For the most part, "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger," is protest poetry but there is no intention on the part of the blogger to change mindsets. Nor ruffle feelings or criticize acts of fellow writers. But we believe in what Mr. Alcantara once said: the poet is a guerrilla or did he actually say, the guerrilla is a poet?

Whatever, we share our experience as journalist and poet in our humble presentation of the scheme of things in our country.

That said, one can also say that the anthology is a documentary in poetic form,

Here is an example from the book:

the slaughter of journalists and other political perfidies

the inner sanctum could not err
quote deny not the little woman unquote
----
.....
the newspaper version was a pain
thing from lethe
like the eternal scourge
like the paradoxes of thieves
in the apex of their discontent
like the dream echo
of a surreal world. 

The author (in red polo) with some Ilokano writers that include Martin Rochina and Freddie Lazaro.

Most, if not all, of the poems in this expanded edition is found, some in parts, in Abel blog.

An installation  of an artist representation of the Ilokano carabao-driven sugarcane
 crusher (dadapilan) at the Laoag City, Philippines plaza.

The vanishing Ilokano barn in Paoay, Ilocos Norte, Philippines

"Let me be vile and base, only let me kiss the hem of the veil in which my God is shrouded. Though I may be following the devil, I am thy son, O Lord, and I love Thee, and I feel the joy without which the world cannot stand. "-- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov