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The Stairs Remember

 

            We ventured into the abandoned cafeteria.  Charcoal was scattered, a mess that was forbidden to be cleaned up.  It covered broken tiles with black powder, suffocating the ground that was hardly seen.  The smell of fire and burnt wood have gone. Only the stench of crushed cement and weathered metal lingered in the soft breeze.  But the traces of disaster were still there, leaving some of Makiling’s history buried in thick piles of rubble.

 

            I went to the left far side of the ruined veranda and saw a staircase hidden in the shadow of a gray and stable wall.  Ferns have learned to live with it and plants dressed the steps up with curling yellow-green leaves vines and slender leaves.  Green moss made a carpet down towards a gloomy room with a shattered installation art piece, waiting for attention that hasn’t come for years until now.

           

The stairs served as a lost way into a fire-eaten past. It held a strong force of solitude, making you feel that it was once alive.

           

Even though the unseen step united with nature, its somber cry could still be heard beneath its rough and tainted surface.  Wanting to be stepped on by new dancing shoes, by bare feet or be stomped on by hurrying students.  I felt like the stairs talked to me in some way.  It wanted to feel the warmth of being around vivacity. It wanted to hear the grand pianos’ symphony echo through its lair once more or the energy that each person exerts when climbing up. 

           

Now the smell of freshly cooked chicken marinated in spices have vanished and have been replaced by soft scent of green leaves and dusted tiles covered in a confusion of charcoal and rusted shards of metal.  But the stairs shall always remember because it listened and it watched during the past years when the wall beside it still held a roof.         

 

Galit ng Ama

 

Parang galit ng ama

Ang hampas ng habagat

Sa batuhang nilampa

Ng bagyong nanlalambat.

 

 

Pananampalataya ng Kalikasan

 

Ang bagyo’y panalangin,

Mga puno’y yuyuko,

Magpupuri ang hangin,]

Tiwala’y ‘di susuko.

 

 

Tahan na Bagyo

 

Huminahon ka sigwa,

Puso mo’y ipahinga,

Galit mo’y lilipas rin,

Mahal ko’y pahimbingin.

                                               

 Pulang likidong umaawas mula sa  malamig na katawan ni Andres, gumgapang sa lupa patungo sa nagdurugo ring Procopio.  Namatay ang kalahating apoy ng rebolusyon, inilibing sa mababaw na hukay ng mga kampon ng Magdalo. Sa ika-sampu ng Mayo, 1897, linamon ng Bundok Buntis ang dalawang magkapatid na Bonifacio.  Kawawang kasaysayan, pinapatay ang kapwa bayani.

 

Pinaghinalaang pagkatraidor ng mga Bonifacio sa local na  gobyerno. Arestado!

Iniharap sa Korte ng Militar at pagpatay lamang sa dalawa ang nahanap na solusyon ng mga heneral.   Ang totoong rason ng galit sa mga Bonifacio ay nakatago sa mga isipan ng mga alipores ni Aguianldo. Magdiwang at Espanya ang tanging kalaban.  Kawawang rebolusyon, humihina sa paghawi ng dalawang grupong pareho ang misyon. 

             

Gaano katagal mabubuhat ng naghihimagsik na kaluluwa ni Andres ang kanyang libingan?  Kung bakit siya pinatay ng pangkat  na nagnanais din ng kalayaan.  Hindi natapos ang kanyang misyon.  At kahit multo ni Bonifacio ang humarap kay Aguinaldo, hindi mabubura ang araw na natupad ang utos na patayin ang Supremo ng Rebolusyon.

 

 

She faces a new notebook,

Such smooth nothingness in her mind,

Just like the blank paper in front of her,

Empty and waiting.

Where have her thoughts gone?

Did television force feed its way

 to her hollow mind?

Or was it all stabbed to death

By a stubborn soul on a couch?

Such drought on her own head,

Withering like a dry dissected brain.

           

You will shimmer of death as I devour your light. Heavenly darkness will befall this world, for you, moon, I feed on.  Only the black silk sheets of Bathala will be seen in the sky.  Have you not gone tired, forever lying in your midnight bed?

 

            As you cry in my presence, your tears shatter into shards of broken light that gently fades as it falls down to Earth.  Even the orbs from below cannot save your life; my dragon teeth have outnumbered them.

           

Let me help you rest your light.  For a pearl like you that glows amidst a black abyss can lose its shine, rusted by the night’s dust, scratched by the raging wind from above, and angered by the jealous stars.  Find shelter in the walls of my stomach.  I shall return you anyway when the more powerful sun yawns out her rays.

 

Maybe I have fallen in love with your subtle light?

 

The blazing orange descending ball on the ocean made me think how splendor can just last a few minutes.  How the sun folds its indefinite rays and turn into a surreal image in the heavens.  That’s when the sky sets on fire.  Burning out ethereal colors, smudged on the delicate surface of the atmosphere, like frozen streams of smoke on the horizon. 

 

But then the sun slowly tumbles down upon the unknown beyond, slowly the black sheets of heaven arrive and bring forth the moon.  Simply the end of beauty. 

 

Poem Solution

 

I live among a world with no poetic salvation,

Of ordeals that rage upon my soul,

But I throb in the fire of my passion.

 

I searched the church for a poem solution,

Within sanctified dusty statues of a saintly goal,

I live among a world with no poetic salvation.

 

It is hard to find inspiration,

To write upon empty words filling a bowl,

But I throb in the fire of my passion.

 

The letters I write embeds in paper with caution,

But a word must know its paper role,

I live among a world with no poetic salvation.

 

I try to write something of perfection,

Yet sometimes my work just serves as coal,

But I throb in the fire of my passion.

 

In writing I always take a fraction

Of the real and the surreal,

I live among a world with no poetic salvation,

But I throb in the fire of my passion.

 

 

                        -Villanelle

Departing

 

In my mother’s midnight mourning,

She stains the floor with all her tears.

Her pale lips are left soured and torn

With raging words sharper than spears.

Her eyes have drowned and have swollen.

She no longer stares at day light,

The rays succumbed to her curtain,

And in her room lived the twilight.

Her depression has killed our cat

And our garden dry in the spring.

The lights stayed off under night’s hat,

And our birds now refused to sing.

            She misses us, me and father.

            The plane should not have crashed for her.

 

 

 

 

                                                                        -Shakespearean Sonnet

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                      -Pantoum

The Tornado of Butterflies

 

Our house was trembling furiously. Walls cracked and the sound of thunder covered the clouds with black paint, the sky was eaten by darkness. I looked out of the window and there I saw a tornado of black butterflies spinning its way through the shuddering neighborhood, wings fluttering with great force all at the same time.

 

The monstrous spinning wind of winged insects passed our house and shredded it to pieces. My family survived but the whole town of San Agustin was torn into gray rubble. After the tornado, specks of black glittering dust descended from the sky and covered the whole town. We all looked upward to see the rain of powder but we did not realize that what we did was wrong.

 

We all survived but our eyes were all covered with black powder, we were blinded. I tried to find my mother but like all the others. We only saw nighttime. Clouds covered the moon, not sharing any of tis light.

 

Two months have passed and the town of San Agustin was still dead. My family and I lived with two more families in a big cave. I was sure it is a cave because it had damp stonewalls and the coldness only came from the opening of our newfound shelter.

 

One night I dreamt of a spring deep down in the forest of San Agustin. Angels were holding me in my hands; their wings were colored peach white. The wings flapped gently every time the angels giggled. I bathed in the spring and dipped my eyes, after that all I could see was white, the angels wrapped me in a white blanket and released me with a spin that sent me swirling through the water. In my dream, I could see. I dreamt the same thing for two whole weeks.

 

Monday night I entered my dreams. I opened the door of my mind and stepped inside my thoughts. I was still blind and I suddenly felt soft hands hold me. A sweet breeze blew my bangs. These were the angels and they guided me into the forest and led me to the spring. Suddenly a demonic laughter spilled through my ear and the breeze became a strong wind. The soft hands that gripped me suddenly felt so rough. They were not angels, they were demons and they threw me back to the door and locked my thoughts away from me.

 

I woke up sweating and exhausted. My eyes were crying tears that flowed the whole midnight. My thoughts were locked and all I could remember was the fact that I was blind.  Someone held me.

 

“Don’t worry, Carina, Nightmares only last one night.

              Though your thoughts are locked away, everything would be all right,

               A key would appear in the great day of bright.

               It would be such a beautiful sight.”

 

When the gentle voice faded away in to the blind night, I slept once more and dreamt of yellow circles bumping into the sides of my eyes, I was too tired to think of the poem.

 

The rooster was singing and I felt the sunlight touch my skin. It was morning, yet all I could see was black. I missed the color of the sunshine.

           

“Carina, I heard you whimpering in the night. Are you all right?” mother asked.

            “Who are you?”

           

“Oh dear don’t tell me you’ve lost your memory. All of us are already blind yet something has taken us away from your thoughts. Why now?” her mother cried and embraced her.

           

“If you are my mother, I am very sorry. Can you please tell me who I am?”

           

“You are Carina, my beautiful daughter. A tornado has broken our town and all of us are blinded! Yet I am very happy that my family has survived. Please tell me that you recall all this?”

 

“I am sorry mother but I do not. I will try my best to remember.”

           

I could feel that my mother wanted all just to make me remember. Her heart was bleeding with pain when she feels that I was naïve and innocent of all this chaos. But we were all naïve, none of us know how to stop the darkness from our eyes, none of us knew why the tornado started. The town of San Agustin was nothing now. A long time has passed and something triggered the famished minds.

           

“Carina, we must get out of this cave quickly!”

           

“Yes, mother.”

           

“Just follow me and your father’s voice, me dear, and hold on to my hands tightly!”

           

The town where I lived in became home for cannibals. People were running wildly. Those who were hungry grabbed other people. I could not see, et I could feel all the chaos. Shouts and screams erupted from each place; we were running so fast. I was bumping into people whether cannibals or not. People grabbed my hair but I bit them, even s I cried. The taste of their hands was unbearable, like salty dust that has been shoved into my mouth. I held tighter to my mother’s arms. I lost my sandals and I was limping along barefoot, stepping on rocks and dust. My feet were bleeding, I could feel blood crawling through my skin but I didn’t want to stop. What was behind us was scarier.

 

“Carina hold on tighter!” My father shouter as he blindly ran out of town.

 

“Father I am scared, why is this happening? I want to remember why!”

 

I was crying hard. I didn’t know anything, my memory was unclear and I wanted the madness to end, I wanted to see. All of us wanted to see.

 

We stopped in the forest. I could hear crickets and bushes were poking me from every direction. My father felt for the weeds, plucked them off, and created a clearing for us to stay. My mother said that we were under a mango tree. She could smell the wonderful scent of mango leaves lingering in the air. We were hungry. My father climbed the tree and looked for mangoes using touch and scent. He came down with a fresh cluster ready to be eaten. I was glad that we stuck to the fruits and not human flesh. When the cold wind embraced us, we know that it was getting dark. My mother and father embraced me and we slept huddled into each other for warmth. The night was cold and I couldn’t sleep. Sounds of the deep forest scared me.

 

Suddenly I smelled something, a scent of cherry entered my nose and hypnotized me to stand up and follow it. I didn’t stumble into anything at all. Then I saw a couple of wings. How could I see?  They floated about twenty centimeters above ground but all was dark and I could see the reddish smoke leaving a trail of pink-like rope pulling me toward it. All of a sudden the wings flew faster and I ran just to catch them. The trail of smoke disappeared and all I could see were the wings.

 

It looked like the wings of angels, then it became smaller and smaller and it turned into a butterfly. Suddenly something carried me back to the clearing. The white butterfly became a dot as I was dragged farther from my only vision besides dreams.

 

“Carina, why have you gone astray? Don’t you know that there are dangerous things here in the forest? No place is safe for us now.”

 

“But father, I could see! I followed the wings with the scent of cherry.”

 

“Dear child, you were only dreaming. Please promise me that you’ll never do that again.”

 

“Yes father, I won’t”

 

I sighed. It couldn’t be a dream. I was breathing and I was there. I knew it wasn’t a dream. My father put me down and sang to me. I never heard him sing before but I was so happy to listen to his sweet lullaby. My eyes became heavy and his notes played on until I slept.

 

When I woke up all I could see was white. The day was too bright and hot, the sun seemed to rise next to us, Rays of yellow pierced my blind eyes. What is happening?

 

“Mother? Father? Where are you?”

 

The embrace  of my parents was gone. I was alone. I stood up panicking, I crawled feeling the ground for my parents but they were nowhere to be found. I looked for the mango tree but the scent was gone. Instead a cherry-like smell was all around. I remembered the smell and I followed it once more. There it was the white butterfly with the trailing pink smoke that slithered through the great white.

 

It flew faster once again and I ran towards it. I created splashes as I ran. The butterfly stopped. I was by a spring. Then the butterfly drew nearer and said, “I am the key to your thoughts you have entered your dream.”

 

           

There it was, a sudden “ting” in my mind. I remembered everything from the start of the tornado. All of my memories flashed in my mind, zooming towards and hitting me with all that I needed to know.

 

A door creaked open in front of me. It stood in the white waters of the clear spring. I walked on the water. A horrible scream came from the door and I felt it pass roughly towards the outside. The demons were gone and something has scared them away. When I entered the door, a breeze floated me away. The angels were there. A blue cloaked lady with little wings of butterflies welcomed me. They held my hands and touched my eyes. I could truly see, it was all real.

 

“I can see!”

 

“Yes my dear, God has given you the eyes of the white butterfly. But let us awake your parents with sight.”

 

           

“But how?”

 

“We will step inside their dreams to awaken their eyes from a long sleep.”

 

Suddenly another door appeared in front of us and we both entered. My mother’s dream was of wide fields covered with lilac flowers that had a scent of strawberry that rose from the ground creating red smoke towards the sky. The clouds became red and it rained with strawberry juice. I saw my mother sitting In the middle of the wet field, I ran to her. She looked at me with a delighted smile. The angel touched her eyes and then she joined us in our travels. A door appeared once more.

 

Door by door, nightmares and fairytales we had about fifty people with us traveling through dreams. Suddenly there it was the dream of our first cannibal. Thousands of cakes were dumped against each other. Fruits grew from every corner of his mind! We found him hunched over a corner of human flesh. The scent was terrifying, I couldn’t come close. But the angel closed her eyes took off her blue cloak and wrapped it around the cannibal’s head. After that, the angel touched his eyes. She removed the cloak and told him to stand up.

 

About two hundred people were now with us, following the angel with blank eyes that could already see, yet they walked like blind people. The last dream was the mayor’s. His was an abstract of circles, hovering into the purple blue galaxy that stretched out so infinite that the circles drove through any direction and never came back again.  The mayor himself produced new circles; he blew bubbled in the middle of his universe. It was a wonderful dream. I didn’t know our mayor was that imaginative.

 

When all of us had sight, we thanked the angel and she disappeared. She left her blue cloak to me. After the angel had gone, a silent blast came through us all. All of us melted and woke up. After waking up all of us had an urge to cry and black tears came out from our eyes. We could see and we cried more and more. All of the powder in our eyes were trapped in our tears and was gone. We were left with the wonderful vision of the world. We were all lying down in the center of the town. The plaza was broken yet the statue of the angel was looking down on us with her butterfly wings. She had no cloak on.