Awww... that is unbearably cute.
Lost in the sea's
unforgiving blue,
I seek you.
Before me
the day unscrolls
its naked scripture:
sun, vision's burning field,
islands, faint presences
crumbling in the distance,
water, the fickle immensities
life is made
constant by.
And it strikes me
I love the sea
because it borders
this suffering world
and the next:
the soul, it is said,
travels in a boat
from a winding inland river,
homing clear-eyed
toward the ocean--
which is bottomless
beyond.
And I know:
here, upon this beach,
wash the crushed remains
of what was once mortal:
bone and kelp,
driftwood and tentacle,
porous red coral--
keepsakes
life leaves behind
before
dissolving
back to brine.
I am home here, then,
whom the world
never loved,
and from its torn edges
I can almost see
it all end:
an onrushing tide,
a radiant sea-swell
sweeping away all appearance,
gentle eddies
whittling the self
till it is no longer
even sand.
I think of you
landlocked and lost
in another element--
your body.
The sea teaches me
love is a wish
not for safety
but for destruction.
I am not ashamed
to admit it:
I love you
the way water loves.
Which is to say
I wish the world
were through with you,
so you could return to me
ravaged, upon this shore:
a shell
held tight
inside my palm.
Tagged by Procrastinator:
1. Grab your nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag 5 different people.
I'm up for some typing so I'll post up my favorite on this book:Fenitchka for once is in her room, out of harm's way, doing her yoga exercises; her five sisters and their boyfriends or husbands have driven off in the Mercedes 450 and the Jaguar to another mushroom-in-the-pot party at D'Tuned In. Turned On, their favorite discotheque, which is, God be praised, closely supervised by the Village PTA. The house is quiet but for Dino singing "Everybody loves somebody somehow..." I pause before my den listening to the song, my throat tightening, the heartburn throbbing in my chest, a flood of memories cascading towards me, a river of vast dark time beginning in San Bartolome by the sea and flowing through Old Manila and the UP on Padre Faura and the war and the years of Mahayligue. (The Climate of Insomnia, from "Excerpts from the Autobiography of a Middle-Aged Ghost Writer with Insomnia" || Gregorio C.Brillantes)
by Eileen Tabios
(in San Francisco)
I have wondered what the sky hides. I now tell you that the sky camouflages the destiny of forgotten memories. The last piece of torn sky, for one, revealed the pursed lips of a tall man to whom I once whispered, "I hear your voice all the time and it's been years since you've said anything new to me."
Tear the sky and you discover it bleeds as you once bled when I shook your hands from my shoulders as you attempted to console me. What I didn't concede then was that I was bleeding, too, as I felt the weight of your touch evaporate into the dusk graying the light. None were consoled when I added, "This isn't happening. This, too, shall be cloaked by a dispassionate sky." Have I even mentioned yet the frigorific blast of wind blowing across the midnight-purple surface of the lake?
I tear off another strip and realize, soon, I shall sleep. For I have achieved what I did not know was my goal when my hands started clawing at night's ceiling. I have brought back the memory of three friends who reminded me that flowers bear their own names. Poets know that naming is identity-making. As the trio of happy faces fall from their atmospheric cubicles to which they were consigned by my amnesia, my eyelids begin to droop.
Tonight the stars circle my pusod* like a miniature Milky Way. Tonight, I remember and recover Michelle, Barbara, and Joey** feeding me balut, sinigang soup, white rice, and longganisa. Afterwards, I won't even faint from scouring a huge pot so that I can join in their banter. All this was foretold centuries ago by a haruspex but since he remains quivering now behind the night sky, I had to experience and cure insomnia to remember how moonlight on Fifth Street silvered everything it touched--
like the wind chime and the four poets it delighted it with its song.
___
* pusod -- navel
** Michelle, Barbara and Joey -- Michelle Bautista, Barbara Reyes, and Joey Ayala. Filipino poets.
and wants to do this book meme.::
People like Sheba think that they know what it's like to be lonely. They cast their minds back to the time they broke up with a boyfriend in 1975 and endured a whole month before meeting someone new... But about the drip drip of long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. They don't know what it is to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the launderette... They don't know what it is to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand on your shoulder send a jolt of longing straight to your groin. I have sat on park benches and tubes and schoolroom chairs, feeling the great store of unused, objectless love sitting in my belly like a stone until I was sure I would cry out and fall, flailing, to the ground. About all of this, Sheba and her like have no clue.
Amazing, powerful piece -- I always get goosebumps whenever I hear this. Glad to find
it online (the wonders of internet!) and know more about it. :)
Lyrics
O Fortuna O Fortune,
velut luna like the moon
statu variabilis, you are changeable,
semper crescis ever waxing
aut decrescis; and waning;
vita detestabilis hateful life
nunc obdurat first oppresses
et tunc curat and then soothes
ludo mentis aciem, as fancy takes it;
egestatem, poverty
potestatem and power
dissolvit ut glaciem. it melts them like ice.
Sors immanis Fate - monstrous
et inanis, and empty,
rota tu volubilis, you whirling wheel,
status malus, you are malevolent,
vana salus well-being is vain
semper dissolubilis, and always fades to nothing,
obumbrata shadowed
et velata and veiled
michi quoque niteris; you plague me too;
nunc per ludum now through the game
dorsum nudum I bring my bare back
fero tui sceleris. to your villainy.
Sors salutis Fate is against me
et virtutis in health
michi nunc contraria, and virtue,
est affectus driven on
et defectus and weighted down,
semper in angaria. always enslaved.
Hac in hora So at this hour
sine mora without delay
corde pulsum tangite; pluck the vibrating strings;
quod per sortem since Fate
sternit fortem, strikes down the string man,
mecum omnes plangite! everyone weep with me!
O Fortuna is the best-known part of Carmina Burana, a musical composition based on a
medieval manuscript that came to light in 1803 in a German monastery. There are
several hundred poems, which may be classified into satirical or moralizing lyrics
(carmina moralia); songs celebrating springtime and love (carmina veris et amoris);
gambling and drinking songs (carmina lusorum et potatorum), including goliardic verse,
and poems with religious content (carmina divina). [Sources here and here]
Linkages:
- Carmina Burana explorer -- comprehensive website about the work.
- Complete Carmina Burana (in Midi format)
Thy soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not loneliness- for then
The spirits of the dead, who stood
In life before thee, are again
In death around thee, and their will
Shall overshadow thee; be still.
The night, though clear, shall frown,
And the stars shall not look down
From their high thrones in the Heaven
With light like hope to mortals given,
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever.
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish,
Now are visions ne'er to vanish;
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more, like dew-drop from the grass.
The breeze, the breath of God, is still,
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token.
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries!
Edgar Allan Poe
[source]
In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."
[Ridiculously stupid, but they do have a reason:]
But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering. [Source]
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