LQ 

Forgive me if my words do not go

      the distance—

            we walk along the shore

night: your face in shadow
 

in the imprints we leave, dying

fish nestle, mouths opening

and closing in the cold
 

they gleam like silver

coins, the shore’s small

change, hurled back by the sea

 
Your shoulder beads with ocean spray

* * *

    Being sick was much more fun when we were children.  So was the rain.

    Endings are inherently tragic.  Beginnings often have a whiff of desperation about them.

    Three is beauty.  Hence, this third line.

* * *

    I miss sleep.  Let me lay my head on your shoulder.    

 

Milenyo was a killer, literally. According to the dailies, there were 76 casualties. On TV was the gnarled skeleton of a billboard, the bare steel bones lonely without the cloth of celebrity endorsement. Just this morning, a man climbed one of those warped steel frames. Everyone made such a fuss about him. The fire department arrived on the scene to talk him out of (possible) jumping. The neighbors were in the usual, Filipino usisero mode. The sun hadn't risen yet, but the news crews did their share of illuminating the scene. Front and center of the drama is the man who suddenly--on a whim, it seemed--decided to climb some billboards.

Why was the billboard climber such an oddity? Maybe he just liked heights-- he was, how do you say it? Acrophilic? Or maybe he wanted to be left alone, so he could think. Maybe there was less air pollution up there. Who knows? What I did find funny was that people automatically assumed that he was disturbed and suicidal. Why is that?

Me, I get a kick out of trains. I find the motion, and the ecumenical anonymity, conducive to a state of peaceful blankness. If I never got off the train though, people would probably think I'm nuts too. Sometimes though, when stress makes me particularly escapist, I wish the "train state of mind" would never leave me: pleasantly cool, not tired or hungry or happy or sad or particularly reflective, neither here nor there. Just cruising.

P.S. When they finally got mr. billboard climber down from his perch, he said (before fainting dramatically before the news cameras): "May problema ako sa ate ko..." Anong problema? asked GMA-7, ABS-CBN, and RPN9, their bulbous microphones almost against his mouth. "Malaki," he said, before passing out on the stretcher. For those who like to predict human behavior, you can breathe a sigh of relief now. He WAS disturbed.

P.P.S I wonder how much they pay train drivers. Would they hire me if I applied? Probably not, but i can promise you better diction over the train speakers if ever.

P.P.P.S. Wish me luck! I'll need it.

The rain has been kind to our vegetable garden. I imagine the fat leaves bejeweled with water droplets, the rich scent of wet earth, the vivid red of siling labuyo protruding from the plant like vestigial fingers. Rogue mushrooms have sprouted from rotten branches, and this i have not imagined. Ate Josie, that dear woman who comes in to help us with our laundry, picked them fresh from the wet mango wood. I want to know what freshly picked mushrooms taste like, but i am afraid of hidden poison in the innocuous looking growths.

Ate Josie talks of the folk belief that lightning combined with rain causes mushrooms to sprout from the ground--that old theory of spontaneous generation. She beams like a child as she presents me with her harvest. I tell her to be careful of the mushrooms.

Later, she tells me that she would not eat the mushrooms either. She has been gone too long from Bicol, her home province, and has forgotten the secrets of the earth.

***

A lone buoy bobbing on the sea. The sea: a mass of giant waves, rendered molten steel by a brief flash of lightning. The buoy doesn't mind (the buoy has no mind)

***

The trees are beautiful in UP at this time of the year. The kalachuchi trees have been stripped of leaves and bear only white or pink flowers on their thin dark branches. Narra trees bear a profusion of yellow petals, which will rain down with strong gusts of wind, fairy dust that gets on your clothes and hair.

I think of that pipe that runs across the field from Albert hall to University Avenue, rough and sun-warmed. I have never walked on it. There was never a proper time, a proper aligning of circumstances. Walking the pipe is the sort of silly thing you share with friends. But people have gone home now, everything seems to be coming to a close, and maybe I'll never walk down that pipe.

I try to think of things that I might have done differently, whether i should've stayed less in the lab, or payed more attention, or participated more, or been a better friend. But these are hard blunt objects that bruise the heart, and must be kept at bay.

I think i am lucky to be alive, and to graduate from university. And now the world waits for us, and change it we will.

But let me linger now, just a little while longer.

I was running as fast as i could bear around Phivolcs -- as part of the scavenger hunt we joined today -- and i almost, honest to goodness, ran over a cat (literally RAN). I didn't know such a thing was possible, since cats are such agile creatures, but apparently, the sight of a clumsy human blundering towards it at full speed made it freeze in its tracks.

(which reminds me of this bit of trivia i heard somewhere about deer, headlights, and roadkill)

A man who witnessed the scene called out something in an angry voice. I don't know if he was angry at me, or at the cat, for not getting out of the (clumsy human's) way. I think he was shouting at me. Ah. C'est la vie.

(Sorry po manong. Di ko naman natamaan e.)

***

My sister takes French lessons from Alliance Francais, and she recently got a kick out of the idea of teaching me some French so she could have someone to speak to at home. Here's a sampler of what i've learned from our first lesson.

Je m'appelle Karen (My name is Karen)
Je suis etudiante (I am a student)
J'habite a Antipolo (I live in Antipolo)
Je suis fatigue (I am tired)
Merci (Thank you)

***

Wala na ko maisip. I am suddenly overcome with the intense desire to drink water. Kampai!