I dream in fast forward
Of that which never was
My pale, moon-drenched skin
Shiver ‘neath the grieving stars
I wait in quiet desperation
Feeling nothing of the real world
Seeing only that which
I have not yet held
Between midnight breaths — a poem
Reviving my half dead hope
I spread out my hands to you;
I thirst for you like a parched land.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Sharing this one from Rabindranath Tagore who was born 160 years ago. This piece is not just a poem, it is a prayer that still speaks true to this day.
May the 4th be with you!
…and also be with me because I badly need it in these lazy days. April went as swift as it arrived and here I am with a late monthly wrap-up.
So without further ado, here goes..
April has been a busy month for me outside blogging. I have not written much this month, despite the world celebrating National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo).
Started The Red Tent by Anita Diamant during the Holy Week and it was satisfying read up to the end. Wrote a review — Book Review: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
As for my book haul, I received two copies of Atwood on World Book and Copyright Day from The Book Snoop. Those who know me well know that I’m impulsive when it comes to books. When I see it, I get it — so long as I find it a worthy deal. However, these two were the first ones that I waited longest. I completed the 30-day rule, a challenge I personally set (just because), before I decided to finally take them. Waiting was a roller-coaster of emotions. I was anxious. I was impatient. But in the end, all the wait was worth it!
Alias Grace, the miniseries, is also available on Netflix for those who prefer to watch the movie first before reading.
Went on two day hikes this earlier in April. One in Liloan’s Lataban Hills, and the other along the Naga-Minglanilla loop.
Typhoon Surigae, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Bising, however, completely turned out plans around later on. We ought to visit Camotes Island but since sea voyages were suspended, we had to make a last-minute Plan B. We decided to go to San Remegio and spend the weekend at Maayo Resort, a Caribbean-inspired resort in this northwestern part of Cebu. It may not be the weekend we expected but it was definitely fun! 😁
Here are some videos from our trips.
It took me sleepless nights and a slit wrist to unlove you. My eyes, once insignias of misery, now glow beneath the cloudless sky. I no longer freeze on a Bublé song. No longer break on the streets where you used to hold my hands. The forget-me-nots have died under my pillow. And on moonlit nights, I dance.
It took me sleepless nights and a slit wrist to love myself.
Now, I wear a tint of blood on my lips
To remind you of what you left
And will never ever get.
Genre: Historical Fiction/Religion/Feminism
Copy: Paperback
Rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌖
Short Synopsis: Her name is Dinah. In the Bible, her life is only hinted at in a brief and violent detour within the more familiar chapters of the Book of Genesis that are about her father, Jacob, and his dozen sons. Told in Dinah’s voice, this novel reveals the traditions and turmoils of ancient womanhood—the world of the red tent. It begins with the story of her mothers—Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah—the four wives of Jacob. They love Dinah and give her gifts that sustain her through a hard-working youth, a calling to midwifery, and a new home in a foreign land. Dinah’s story reaches out from a remarkable period of early history and creates an intimate connection with the past. Deeply affecting, The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women’s society.
What I Liked:
What I didn’t like: The book, in general, takes a feminist slant so I understand that the POVs are focused mostly on women. However, there were slightly biased depictions of men. Some lack character development, while others seem like trifling characters.
Favorite quotes:
“If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully.”
“The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.”
“Of all life’s pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.”
“I could not get my fill of looking.
There should be a song for women to sing at this moment (giving birth) or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment.”
“Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art.”
“It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.”
Final Thoughts: Captivating. Rich. Beautifully and poignantly penned. It may only be a fictionalized version but every page brims with life.
I’m glad that this novel did not end with forgiveness of sins and starting all over because some sins are far too great to be forgiven, more so forgotten. But not forgiving others does not necessarily means living every day with anger. This is what Dinah showed me. It is choosing to walk away from the bad and move forward. And, sometimes, the closure we seek cannot be found in others but within ourselves.
My reading heart is full.
Have you read The Red Tent? Did you like it as much as I did?
I wake up to one of those lazy mornings. The leaves have changed and a thick fall foliage probably awaits me outside. People fear me. Footsteps quicken whenever they pass by my house in this part of the jungle.
Yet, a child’s innocence is magical. Most often, they are valiant warriors throwing pebbles at my window, playfully screaming, “THE WITCH ON THE FOOTHILL IS REAL! RUUUUUN!”
Once, two kids braved knocking on my doorstep. A big brother and a little sister. The spunky little girl came up in her yellow dress, demanding, “Are you a witch?”
“Am I?” I asked.
She looked at me with ambigous eyes, calculating and curious. “Our teacher told us the story of the witch on the foothills. She lives with spiders and bats and pumpkins with glowing eyes,” the girl said, comfortably taking a chair, uninvited. “But you live with cats, butterflies and plants that wear crowns.”
“They’re cactus,” I told her.
“Just as I thought,” she dismissed. “You should come out sometimes and see the ocean. Except when there’s a hurricane. Hurricanes are the worst. Jake and I can’t play when there’s one. And it howls like a monster at night.”
I smiled, amused with this small creature that talks endlessly in front of me. Her brother left a while ago to call their parents.
What hasty little children…
This one is my entry for our company’s mini writing challenge. We were asked to pick cards with corresponding words and use these as elements to create a story.
4 CHARACTERS: Parents, Teacher, Children (2)
2 ANIMALS: Cat, Butterfly
3 PLANTS: Cactus (3)
2 LOCATIONS: Jungle, Ocean
2 TIME: Morning, Night
1 SEASON: Fall
3 EVENTS: Hurricane (3)
1 ENDING: Ambigous
It was unclear if they wanted to use the last word literally or end the story as such, so I choose to do both.
Hah! It’s been a while since I have written a short story huh.
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day.
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath past away a glory from the earth.
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;
I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday;—
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy.
Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,
This sweet May-morning,
And the Children are culling
On every side,
In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm,
And the Babe leaps up on his Mother’s arm:—
I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
—But there’s a Tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone;
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat:
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother’s mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years’ Darling of a pigmy size!
See, where ‘mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,
With light upon him from his father’s eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learn{e}d art
A wedding or a festival,
A mourning or a funeral;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song:
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife;
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his “humorous stage”
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage;
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul’s immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That Nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound!
We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
Sharing this beautiful piece from William Wordsworth who was born on this day in the year 1770. Wordsworth is one of the poets whose love for the natural world can be felt in his poems. Many of his works talk about the importance of nature to our intellectual and spiritual development. He saw nature as a living source of wisdom, peace and joy.
This particular ode speaks about growing up, falling in love for the natural world, losing connection with nature, and finding consolation in remembering the past. Today, let us take some time to appreciate the beauty around. ❤
We marched into the month of March to celebrate the true beauty and strength of women. Yet, across the world, the number of oppressed and abused women continues to climb at a fast rate. Here in the Philippines, incest and rape soared high during the pandemic. The culture of mysogyny and sexism is an all-day meal. It’s tiring.
And who would have thought, we’d have a dejavu of last year’s trauma. While the rest of the world is trying to move forward, my country — guess what — is still in chaos. There’s too much politics, greed and miscommunication. I could rant and list how fucked we are now but that won’t change a thing.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that March has not been too great for me. Here’s a quick look back:
Creative writing has been hard for me lately. My one and only poem this month was triggered by a recent issue about our Tatay Digs who was seen trying to touch his maid’s private part during his birthday. The palace, of course, defended the man and claimed there was “no malice.” The maid “laughed” and besides, the president’s wife was present. FTW.
I’ve only managed to finish three books this month:
As for my book haul, I’ve finally got a copy of Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita (Php390 @purplephcloset)
Some bookish thoughts:
My friends and I had another sea to summmit experience this month. We spent a weekend camping in a not-so-know mountain in Naga. Though I have nothing against sharing beautiful hiking/camping spots with others, I think it’s not ready for everyone yet. Like it or not, there will be irresponsible people who abuse nature. We need to continue reminding ourselves proper outdoor etiquette.
Respect nature and wildlife. Take your trash with you.
Now, moving onto April….
Honey, let me tell you what your eyes refuse to see
When I smile at the man who dares touch my skin,
All my insides turn upside down
My ribcage strain to hold out anger
My chest is empty of breaths and full of violence
A curse has latched itself into my bones ─
It peels. It burns.
Beyond my Cheshire smile is a war
Between words I want to say and the world that won’t let me
My heathen tongue is shut by the thing that you call “joke”
So I bite down a wrathful scream
Swallow a coil of sorrow,
Bury it deep in a mass grave of apologies
For being a woman who can’t fight.
Honey, you see ─ or perhaps you don’t
There is no safe place my kind
Against the devil and you, the accessory to the crime
Who thinks a touch,
A tap,
A graze,
A pinch
Is just being “playful”
I am not a toy.
I am bones and flesh held hostage
By prejudice and wealthy monsters
Who use my lack for their gain ─
Leave your pretense on my doorstep
For I have long died
My smile ─ no, my mouth
Is now an open wound for the flies
Open your eyes.
I know that I said I won’t let current news and affairs affect me. That I would take care of my mental health first. But there are just those days when people’s stupidity triggers the anger in you. This is one of those moments.
