NOTA BENE

A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a new process that will bring about new things he could not have thought of if he had not started to say them. William Stafford

Journal of August 29/No Apay a Natay ni Cory

Roger "Bomba" Arrienda was a fiery broadcaster during the Marcos years. He has become a bishop(did our ears betray us?) of a born-again Christian group. His language and speech mannerisms remind me of Heherson Alvarez, the former Ilocano senator from Santiago City. Roger and a born-again Christian physician are discussing two historical events on TV: (a) the Plaza Miranda bombing during a Liberal Party rally (miting de avance); and (b) the death of Cory Aquino.

Roger disclosed what has been known a long time: The Communist Party of the Philippines ordered the bombing that killed several people and wounded scores of others. Ferdinand Marcos had been blamed for the carnage but nobody "apologized" for the error, Roger said.

Corazon Aquino died despite the prayers of the whole nation to cure her of her colon cancer. Why do others in similar circumstances, who have been prayed over, continue to live? The physician's answer: if God decreed you can only live this long, then you have to die at the appointed hour.

So Cory died of her disease because God did not want her to live more than 75 years of age. Living beyond 70 is a bonus from God, the physician said.

Come Again, Stranger /Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet

Introduction

Lyric Fire by The River and Beyond
by Pelagio A. Alcantara

The poet rages and sings of his millieu.

Peter La. Julian is a respectable poet who burns and chants with a message and plucks his sensitive chord by the side of a river where he grew up and discovered the early sparks of his poetic fire. By accident of birth, being a riverside poet has its added advantage by designa: the life and death of rivers is a symbolic struggle between man and his environment from which clash and clime, ebb and flow, the poet draws his material and themaic insights. But beyond the river of one's boyhood is also a range and variety of Julian's powerful voice. Journalist and fictionist, parent and friend, he too is a government functionary undimmed by the mist of bureaucratic routine. But whether or not the poems in this volume are sermons, elegies or lamentations, always the chief mourner's mood and manner in his own gentle way rues against the "stupidities" of men in the "midnoon of their separate lives."

At ease with his medium and message, PLJ packs his lines and communicates with the intensity and force of lyric fire.He succeeds most when he ruminates over the summer spell of Padsan River and its massive bridge that connects his sullen city and beyond mocking the puny speeches of a festive folk crawling underneath. But he arouses best when he pokes his journalistic nose for a smell of the gut issues with piercing wit, imagery and sarcasm. His metaphor drips. His irony laced with certain sadness over the "babylons of the world" and the "gods who walk on white feet" in "these isles of songs and poems." He scorns the burdens of the bureaucracy as a "wet morning" in the house of public men, cabals and conspirators, "dissecting omissions of the boss" and then looks outside for sun where "sleep is a a beautiful country under the coconut tree."

But no matter what his quarrels with world are and the images he mourns, be that of a Negros child, the fall of a shallow boss, pimps at Las Palmas, Sunday Catholics, foreign exploiters, Kabunian and his brown gods, lure of the hills, tawdry politics, dying rivers, ravaged forests, rape of the multinationals, poet's loss of meaning, dead relative, or the reign of the new centurions of change--Julian is a nationalist consistently aware of and unfazed by his "enemies within." And in his attempt to redress society, he never fails to blend the luminous line and the nibbling sense of frustration bursting at the seams of his controlled rage.

That is why a reading of PLJ poems singly, or in this volume, is no dull and dense moment. Inspired by a Frostian view of reality that is "deep, dark and lovely," his is a nagging excitement, visceral and cerebral, that salves the pain and gross of irreverence and ignorance, pitfalls of parochial poetry and the arrogance of the turbid mind which he tries to avoid with grace and humility. Like his poems in English, the Iluko versions are silent celebrations of clarity and eloquence, even elegance, that require a separate comment and study for a deeper appreciation.

Minor slips and flaws nothwithstanding, and the temptation to moralize, "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger" is a welcome event and invitation to the beauty and dignity of the countryside caught in the canvass of the poet as well as an introductioin to the overdue appearance in book cover of a recognized master of his millieu and message both in the English and Iluko ambience. With this ceremonial book, PLJ has come and is here with an asterisk.

The rage must go on.

POEMS UNDER THE TITLE OF THE BOOK



Today Arrives the News About the Fall of Doloroso Dans

it's a wet morning, but a promise of sun
lingers on the glass panes.
the room is too small for these public men
dissecting omissions of the boss now gone
to nowhere to celebrate alone
his fall. (was it the absent magazine message
that triggered his disaster?)

we are like conspirators revising the plot
in some alleyways dark with hate and violence:
a, brutuses recreating caesar's gory death.
no matter, the joy is ours now and we shall jot
in our diaries this day of victory.

basil valdez on tape wails out a song
sans end. (requiem to a dead rat?) the waxed floor
is littered with crumpled papers and cigarette butts.
the rubbish can wait, sings the janitor baring a set
of tattered teeth as he joins n the banter and the laughter.
(ha-ha-ha, the fetters broken?)

indeed, the people's domain needs
cleansing cream, new manners, new ideas, new minds
that, in pursuit of the sun, shall burn the night with liquid
fire of gods and high ambitions: no mre ruins to tread
this midnoon of our separate lives: the swan song
has been sung and the recorder is broken forever.
(did he not know, did not the cabal that fed
him with parables of lies hear the funereal songs of gentle souls?)

the typewriters are silent, the whir
of electric fans lost in the cacophony of sounds. like cattle
loosed from a coral, we excite the air and our voices reveal kinship
with roman assassins. no matter: this joy is ours now. permit us
these stupidities for just this day for soon our ship
shall move again and blaring trumpets shall in distant shores
announce our arrival.

*prize-winning poem originally published in FOCUS magazine, Manila


Ethiopia in Negros But not Vice Versa

1.

Ethiopia is barren country
Rains fall once in a century
There food crops do not thrive
And the children, diseased and always hungry
Are stony silent.
Their sunken eyes plead
for mercy.
Ethiopia is a joyless world
for children.

2.

Negros is green country
Rains fall in torrents regularly
There food crops thrive well
But the children, diseased and always
Hungry, must work hard
For a plate of rice.

Their sunken eyes speak eloquently
Of the filthy rich in thier country.
Negros is a joyless world
For children.


Notes To Ben Castillo, My Nationalist Brother*

1.

The gods who walked
on white feet
are back in a foreign country.

2.

Back in their islands
the barbarians who raped your sister
are erecting towers
on borrowed blueprints.

3.

And the teachers of democracy
tired of progress and surplus goods
are mocking god in vietnam.

4.

And we?
We who tore the g-string
from the brown body?

5.

Of course, we are snoring
the sun hot
on our face.

5.
Ha-ha-ha!
let the holocaust come.
Sleep is a beautiful country
under the coconut tree.

*originally published in the Philippines Free Press


DUNGA-AW IV

Namin-adun nga inukagko ti pakasaritaan
Awan nasarakak nga arngi ti panagparti
kadagiti karayan ti dara
idiay zamboanga idiay cebu
kadagiti nasulinek a disso.

Uray ti panagbirok iti mangpalag-an koma
iti luksaw patneng a kinadangkok
agpatingga iti pannakaupay
umadu latta dagiti saludsod
ket agtalinaed dagiti sungbat
a ganggannaet kadagiti binnatog
bimmaba ti dusa? wenno lunod?
panagsagaba agingga a perngen
ti init iti labes dagiti gura
dagiti kinaagum, allilaw?
ay, adtoy nga uliten ti historia
daytoy ti rugi? daytoy ti tengnga?
daytoy kadin ti paggibusanna?
agtuloy latta a maitugkel
dagiti padeppa nga awan naganna.

Journal of August 24/The Burial of Claire Sumahit

THE BURIAL OF CLAIRE SUMAHIT, BANNAWAG WRITER

     Claire Aguirre Sumahit who died of cancer--she was diagnosed of disease five years ago-- was buried today at the family compound at No. 9, Tadiangan, Asin, a village of Baguio. Earlier, a service was held at the Funeraria Paz, where her body has been lying in state since she died last Monday. Rey Acacio, an Elder of the Jehovah's Witnesses in which Claire was a member, delivered a eulogy. Olga, Claire's her eldest daughter, gave the response, a brief one. She thanked those who came. She said she regretted she did not inherit her mother's writing prowess. She revealed that during her final days, she asked her mother what she would say during the occasion Her mother dictated to her a sort of a quatrain, which Olga read, in the original Iloko: "Nagbiag a nakurapay,/ kanumuan kadagiti amin a tattao,/napnuan iti biddut ken basol /ngem naaddaan iti puso a makaammo nga agayat."

     The final words could have been the epitaph on Claire's tomb, which is on top of a low hill with trees--pine, alnus, marunggay- and flowers. The place is a few meters away from Terry's house. There is a path to the hill. After lowering the casket on a pit, the men put the slab of cement over the casket , and sealed the tomb. It was past 11 in the morning. We and Pedro Sanidad, a Gunglo dagiti Mannuratl member, went down, while others lingered around the area where a makeshift shed has been constructed.

   Lemuel, Claire's youngest son, distributed pink and white balloons which were released at the count of three.

    Goodbye, Mama, said Lemuel. Two of the balloons got caught below the second floor of Terry's 3-story concrete house and stayed there for sometime.

     Ilocano writers and broadcasters attended the burial:

  Crisostomo Ilustre, who has been blind for 20 years came all the way from Vigan, accompanied by his alalay, Patricio Virtudez; Luvimin Aquino, president of Gunglo dagiti Mannurat nga Ilocano-Baguio chapter and other members of the group like Lety Astudillo-Aquino, Mrs. Jurabon, a teacher at the Baguio City Boys High; Dr. Lito de Francia, formerly of the University of the Cordilleras; Pedro Sanidad and this writer. Jehovah's Witness member Gobleth Moulic of Philippine Daily Inquirer Northern Luzon Bureau was also there by her lonesome.

NOTA BENE

Ania ti mensahek, Apo Severino? Dimo kadi madlaw a ngilngilawen ti Bannawag idiay Five Sisters, iti sidiranna a sumango iti pasdek ti Life Theatre a nagbuyaantayo idi ti maysa a pelikula ni Ronald Reagan?

Ania ti mensahek, Appo a Bangolan a kunkunada, "dagiti Adigi ti Literatura Saluyot?"

We as parents are our own enemy. We don't talk to our children in the mother language. Some parents, especially those with Tagalog, Pangasinense or Kapampangan spouses, have made Tagalog a language of the home. This is true in some households, in fact, many households in the North. Visit Baguio or Cauayan and Santiago in Isabela.

We colonized non-Ilocano lands in the North and exported the language and culture to what was then to us the New World.

We have been dominant in most of the areas in the imagined Amianan Nation.

It will no longer be so. This supremacy is being threatened. From without. From within. It is real. Very real.

The culprits? National language and education policies, among them. And the Ilocano patnengs, they who belong to the great ethno-linguistic group, in cahoots with the neo-colonizers, heirs to the colonial masters.

(Of course, as colonizers, we neither coerced nor imposed laws, ordinances and decrees. We won them by the sheer power ot the so-called demonstrative effect/syndrome.)

Journal of August 21

Ninoy's 26th-year martyrdom today. The national papers--Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star and Manila Bulletin--ran full and half page ads, recalling the event when former senator Benigno Aquino, husband of Cory Aquino, the newly-installed Philippine heroine, was assassinated at the tarmac at the airport in Manila now named after him. I bought the Philippine Star before I went down to San Fernando to meet Sister Cecile Lanas of the Order of St. Benedictine.

No activity in San Fernando to mark the occasion. The office of Star Northern Luzon, where I was to meet Edwin Beleo, the layout man, to get my copies of the weekly tabloid is closed.( I run a column in the paper, Eyes Wide Open.)

They should have told me, I told my self. Anger was rising in me. But a Buddhist philosopher came to me, "Guard against negative thought." Jun Elias, the publisher, sent yesterday a text message the guy Edwin would be meeting me. Later, Jun was very apologetic for this incident.

Before 12 noon, I met the nun in her profession's habit. It was at the second floor of the Diocesan Center beside the St. William's Cathedral.

She was a young woman, frail, delicate as a rose. She talked to me in Ilocano with a Visayan accent. She must have learned Iloko by ear. Talking to her erased my doubts against the religion organization as she mentioned the activities like holding Bible seminars she and another nun had been doing to promote the faith and well-being of people.

Journal of August 20

Mi amigo Pedro S. I met him at the Dainty Resto along Session road, where they also sell the country's most popular ice cream. He was drinking black barako coffee along with two young men. They were sitting close to the north wall of the restaurant.The formica-topped table was only for three people and I had to pull a chair from another table and sat myself . I was facing mi amigo whose back was towards the wall. He introduced me to the men: PLJ is one of the best writers in the language. They nodded in acknowledging my presence.

Mi amigo Pedro he said Lito de Francia has just    taken a bath and would be arriving at 10:oo. Together with Rey Quidangen, another writer, we would be going to Funeraria Paz where the body of Clare Sumahit, an Ilokano writer, who died of cancer was lying in state. But Rey would be going there ahead of us.

Lito arrived at 10:30, a few minutes after the two young men left. We shook hands and hugged while mi amigo Pedro sipped his black coffee on a glass. Mi amigo Pedro ordered black coffee for us but knowing my preference, Lito said it's tea for his kumpadre.

Lito went to the counter and looked for his favorite American bread at the glassed display booth.

Mi amigo Pedro was supposed to be footing the bill. I looked at him and he smiled, saying Lito will be paying our bill.

Lito came back to our table. We talked about Claire who died of cancer of the breast and what we as a writers' group would be doing during her last night at the funeral parlor.

The waiter came with the bread which had been sliced into three parts and put on three small plates.

We finished eating the bread and sipping our coffee. The waiter came and cleared the table. Lito went to the counter to pay our bill. Dutch treat, I said and pulled a 100 peso bill from my wallet, gave it to Lito but he did not take it.

I looked at mi amigo Pedro and he with a smile said, Lito is going to pay the bill.
We left the restaurant as a long line was forming at the ice cream section.

Mi amigo Pedro he hailed a taxi. "Idiay Funeraria Paz," he told the driver.
Lito sat beside the driver, instead of mi amigo Pedro. He was smiling at me as he leaned back at the seat. Nakalamangka manen, I said to myself

It was heavy traffic at the bottom of Session all the way to Naguilian Road.

Journal of August 19

My amigo Pedro S. I sent him a text message: have you viewed Claire's body? I have just arrived from Isabela, an 8-hour trip, to give my final respects to the retired University of Baguio professor and fellow Ilocano writer. She died of cancer two days ago and her body was lying in state at Funeraria Paz along Naguillian Road.

Saan pay, mi amigo Pedro texted back.

What about Lito de Francia?

Napanda kinita ti bangkayna idi umuna a rabii.

Lito's wife is a real estate broker. The family now lives in a concrete house in Irisan at the Baguio outskirts. They used to rent the second floor of a high-rise apartment near a bridge along Rimando Road.

I don't have Lito's number in my phone book. I composed a message for him and requested my amigo Pedro to forward it to Lito.

My amigo Pedro never answered my request. Nada. Nada until seven in the evening. I sent again a message to my friend. No answer. Nada.

We had veggies (pinakbet) and liempo for dinner. My apoko Christian, the first-born son of Rene Rafael, relished the liempo, cut into small pieces, which he dipped in sauce made of pig's liver. I brought the liempo as pasalubong along with other Raul Lechon meat products wrapped in tin foils. (My son works in a multinational company in Singapore).

I was very tired from the trip and I was sleepy. I waited for mi amigo's message. Nada. Nada until I fell into a dreamless sleep. A, mi amigo Pedro he is my friend whenever we lunch with sugarless barako cofeee at Session's Daily Restaurant.

Come Again, Stranger, and Discover These Isles*

for Mehru Jaffer


massage parlours and the discos
at mabini and the pimps at las palmas
did not speak of my country
neither did the taxi driver
with the fast meter; they, too, populate
all babylons of the world.

the beaches and mountains up north waited
for your white feet and your dark eyes
and the brown maidens of pagudpud
prepared for you a drink of coco milk.

you would have savoured babuyan's divine winds
seen fishwives pulling in the early morning
catch and urchins frolicking in the sands.
you would have breathed the gentle air
of green fields, tasted the sweetest of mangoes
and a tumult could have overwhelmed you
before the red sun sinking beyond
the hundred isles.

you would have slept soundly
inside a hut by the sounding sea.

how brief your stay, stranger,
your nikon could have caught the splendor
of mayon and the bay and yes, yes, shooting the rapids
at pagsanjan could have thrilled you no end.
a southern cruise could have taken you
to many edens and zamboanga could have welcomed you
with a riot of native flowers.

i will not speak of coves and islets
and wild orchids and monkeys without tails
and rice terraces and stalks of golden grains kissing the sky
and birds mating in the heavens
and village swains strumming guitars
down a path lined with gumamelas
nor of young sagalas, handsome escorts
in a may procession of images.

i will not speak of gay fiests and the ati-atihan
of antique and carabao races, lechon parades.

i will not speak of a thousand wonders
but, come again, stranger, come again and discover
these isles of songs and poems.


Sermon On The River

Half-sunked in the sand, the driftwod
Preaches to frogs hugging moss-covered stones.
I remember Sunday Catholics
In the old hometown church:

They are no more than hagglers
In the marketplace while God's lieutenant
Is wasting away his voice over a defective
Microphone.

No, I'd rather seek the Eternal
In this dying river, in this massive bridge,
In those mist-shrouded mountains
Beyond.

*Naipablaak iti Asiaweek magazine, nairaman iti expanded edition ti "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger", maysa nga antolohia dagiti dandaniaw iti Ilokano ken Ingles

Journal of August 17

Undoubtedly, we become what we envisage--Claude M. Bristol

Mi amigo Pedro S., I asked him, how is Claire Sumahit?
He answered in a text message, Kasta met ti sinaludsod ni Lito de Francia idi kalman. Apay, what is so special about Claire?
Claire and Pedro, they are my colleagues in the writing profession. Claire, a retired University of Baguio professor, is a columnista in Bannawag, the Iloko weekly magazine.
I told Pedro: Adda kano idiay hospital. Stage 4 cancer.
I live in Oscariz, Ramon, Isabela. Mi amigo Pedro, he is my friend whenever I am in Baguio where he and Claire live.
Intex manen ni Pedro: Addaak iti lugan nga agpa-La Union. Agdamagakto no sadino a hospital ti nakaiconfinenan ni Claire.
Ok ngarud, itexko koma. Ngem insanamtekko, sal-itka, mi amigo, Pedro. I thought you knew.

Ihad a bad dream last night; it is this kind of dream in which in reality something happens--an acquaintance meets an accident or dies. At past five this afternoon, my fellow writer and kumpadre, Lito de Francia, formerly of the Unversity of the Cordilleras, sent a text message: Claire Sumahit died today. Her body is now at Funerara Paz in Baguio. Nagparparikna ngata because two days ago, I said in the website of dadapilan. com--hold on Claire. I was supposed to go to Baguio today, but the trip was postponed. I had to do some editing and sending entries for prizes to Reader's Digest. Jim Domingo, another Bannawag writer, also sent a message: Claire died at 2:30 a.m. today. I feel bad for not making the trip to Baguio today. Claire is a great loss to Iloko writing. She attended the national convention of the association of Ilocano writers at Novaliches last April, where she bought books by F. Sionil Jose and posed for the 1982 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Literature. Sapay koma ta aginana ti kararuam, Claire. ( I asked your forgiveness, Claire. In our dangadang with Cles R., you were caught in the crossfire.) I sent a tx message to Franklin M. to contact Lito to get information on the cost of a wreath of flowers we would be giving to the dead woman.
Ittthhfor

Renata, Hold the World Together

1.

love is dead
(the wind blows lonely)
but there is a return
to moonlght on the beach
where her laughter keeps thundering
across the fragile brain

the world laughs
the sun is a fiery disc in the sky
but there is a cold cold corner
at dawn
morning is the beginning
of a thousand deaths

2.

there is order in the world:
war, famine, thirst,
death, immorality, crime against
property, all are parts indivisible
even hallucinations

and the poet asks:
will it end in fire or ice?

i say neither


the world will end
when i no longer see myself
in your eyes:

when the chain
of love snaps

in two, breaking
like brittle twig.

The Time of the Holocaust

(after The Road by Cormac McCarthy)




for dulce cantos, dj

by peter la. julian


go to another country
where the moon is a meandering river
the sun a flight of birds in a sky of utmost blue
it is a season when papayas are in bloom
but the tree is a barren woman in the spring
of her life--gone are the stars in her eyes.
it is a season of harvest, but the farmer, crying
in the shed, is at rest--his work animal
has long been buried.
an old man is walking on the beach
strewn with ashes and dead fish.
it is sunset, but the voices of urchins are muffled
the landscape is bereft of sound and life.
it was a year without the typhoons and the rains
and death is alive in the silence where once
stood the green forest.
go to another country
where the sun rises in the west
and the moon weeps at sunrise.

and we? we shall search the ruined cathedrals
comb the mountain city that perished in flames
and finding none, we shall descend to the grand
canyons of memories.

Wanderlust

all rights reserved

this looking for a pile of gold
this looking for the filthy gentleman
this looking for the young years
in darayday and santa maria
this looking for another shore
is it looking for what is not there?

in honolulu, did you look for the sun in the west
or the moon by night?
or did you look for the bitchy word
or was it baguio in the garbage at a waimanalo
back street.
what did you say to him who begged for a dollar
as you stepped out of dimsum after the eating hour?
did you wave him away, remembering the grease man
stretching his arm for alms on the pavement
facing the boulevard near the quiapo catholic church?

what were you mumbling as you crossed the street
for the civic honda underneath a lamppost in chinatown?

and what did you say to her who greeted you, a smile breaking
her oriental face, as you jabbed at eggplants among asian greens
at dong phung? did she mistook for for a vietnamese/laotian
cousin as she babbled on, her words galloping like wild horses
on the great plains of amarillo to san francisco?

the TV was on, the bad guy was cursing, son of a bitch, we are
in terrible, terrible danger. john-john nee juan juan was by his lonesome
in the room playing with his plastic flute.

the snow is gone from the foot of the cottonwood
and so are the dark mornings and evenings, the high winds
at amarillo medi-park, where there are a thousand flying geese
and white lazy ducks now agitated for their late morning meal
as the huge black woman throws bird food
upon the murky waters.

stop it! stop it! was the woman in red jogging pants screaming
as you aimed the digital camera towards the sun above the pine tree
she was passing by? or was it a hound dog barking non-stop
in the usual violent dream?

whatever, arise, old friend from the bench, and walk the meandering path
home where waits the new york best- seller you bought wat wal-mart.
it is a must read tonight while brown men toil, their color turning dark brown
in the sun-drenched country of shattered dreams.