The Soul Sheik

The Sky and the Sea
Never coalesce like milk and tea
Lover to both
Ethereal heaven and vehement broth

I am the Wind.

The air is humid, and I’m sweating profusely as the warm air hints of rain. A cat stealthily undulating on the branch of our santol tree across my window pane, recently trimmed to accommodate more sunshine. The afternoon sun is out, yet the sky is ashen gray and the clouds spread too thinly, like an inarticulate watered-down stroke of watercolor made by pre-schooler. My consciousness swimming in the heat and the sweat, as the heat of the sun bounces off the concrete. I have abandoned flirting with happiness and all it’s promises. I turn to beauty and irony, the irony of beauty. Beauty is subject to the experience and totality of it’s beholder. That is my definition, and cannot help but see beauty in melancholy, beauty in the otherwise mundane and inexplicable suffering. I see beauty because I’m alive!

Despite the years of defeaning silence, the horrors of violence, the mangled bodies and the blood and the gore, staring death through the barrel of a rifle, a child’s last breath and a mother’s incomprehensible overflowing. Horrors I dared not speak nor utter a syllable, instead grounded them down to their simplest constitution(wordless and pure), my most basic truths to fill-in my blanks and spaces suspended between my two eternities.

When I was younger, I happened upon a narrative, “Scarred people are beautiful.” Here it is:

MAN SPEAKS:

I think I know what you mean, Lord, I’ve met people like that…
and knowing them gives me courage.
The great people are those who continue to love with their scars…
I like scarred people, Lord – They are beautiful..

Regardless of our ironies and insecurities and other ignorable facts of who we are as a people. WE ARE BEAUTIFUL.

Mula sa makulimlim kapit sa patalim
saklip and lamig at ang dilim
karamay ang hapdi at kawalan
Hiniwang katimpian

Salugsog ng alaalang nakakaakit
Ulila sa liwanag wala nang bait
Sukdulan na ang hirap at kamatayan
Pikit-mata pinalaya and katimpian

Ngayo’y malaya na sa selda
Ngunit hindi pa sa pangangapa
Natarok din ang inampalayang kataksilan
Hinubaran ko na ang katimpian

Nakararahuyong pangako ng mga pulitiko
Buksan ang mga mata, pakiramdaman ang tukso
Bawat himaymay ay himayin at suriin
Masangkot sa masanghayang tungkulin

From Writing On Air:

The Idealist’s Quest

Dear Jim,

Ninoy was a very conscientious man, very passionate, a free spirit with the burden of love for his country, he was a shooting star, and in a blinding flash he’s gone. Ever since that day at the tarmac, a lot of Filipinos (living and dead, in the limelight and among the masses) broke bread, drank his wine and carried on the burden of conscience for our beloved country. You are one them Jim. It is easy to lose hope as our country faces a crisis (not of the financial nature) of morality.

We cannot alienate ourselves from RESPONSIBILITY from current state of affairs. Every filipino is accountable, not just for the things that we have done, but also for the ones we didn’t. It is easier to lay blame and excuse ourselves and say, “what could I have done?”

We are filipinos, we’re not just bystanders, we must take part, pick up roles, inspire and be inspired, sing and write, whatever it takes, whatever that takes hold, cry and bleed for it. Only then can we count ourselves worthy, worthy of Ninoy’s sacrifice, worthy to call ourselves FILIPINO.

As a people, we have become dysenteric cynics. Are we to believe that?!? Are we as sallow-faced as our politicians? Can we live without hope? Can we live without conscience and morality (because it burdens us so)?
Let’s take heart, that as vile, evil and as inhumane a human heart can be. Kindness and love also has it’s viral qualities. Let us be infected and be feverish about it.