April and pink trees gone

Purple Jacarandas

Reign in May

snow in winter

warm sunshines

purple rain

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Folding laundry is my least favorite chore. I manage to find all kinds of distractions while I’m at it. Moments ago, while folding my son’s underwear, I realized that it was just an hour before Valentine’s day. I hit the PAUSE button, got off the couch, and took out some books. Never mind that 3 ft. mountain of clean clothes. Wouldn’t it be nice to read some love poems?

These two poems by Trinidad Tarrosa Subido were my favorites when I was younger. They kept me company after I broke up with my first love. I read them again and again while I wallowed in a pool of melodramatic imaginings. They made me feel like the heroine of a tragic romantic film. My lovestory even had a theme song! Rosell Nava’s “Bakit Nga Ba Mahal Kita” was on auto-reverse in the cassette player of my brain. Remarkable how, of all the songs out there, I had to pick this one, something which I hardly paid attention to when I was thinking straight.

Love is Not All

by Edna St. Vincent-Millay

Love is not all; it is not meat nor drink

Nor slumber, nor a roof against the rain,

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink

And rise and sink, and rise and sink again,

Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;

Yet many a man is making friends with death

Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.

It may well be that in a difficult hour,

Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,

Or nagged by want, past resolution’s power,

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

It may well be. I do not think I would.

I’m older and wiser now. These days I find myself gravitating toward Edna St. Vincent-Millay’s works and others like it. The poem above, which I used to classify under the BLEH category, has emmerged at the forefront of my consciousness, trumping all others. I distinctly remember my favorite teacher declaring this to be the most romantic sonnet of all.

MY THOUGHTS

1. Huh?
2. More romantic than Shakespeare?
3. Than Robert Browning?
4. It reads like an ordinary conversation. What’s romantic about that?
5. The writer sounds like a very rational person.
6. Old maids have weird tastes.

I’ve had years to think about this. And now, as I approach 40, I wish I can tell my teacher that I finally understand her point of view. This love poem doesn’t heap praises on a woman or a man like most sonnets do. It doesn’t exalt love. Instead, it makes the reader feel like it’s trying to belittle love by enumerating all the things it is incapable of doing. Love isn’t such a big deal, according to the speaker in the poem. It can’t ease physical hunger, can’t energize you when you’re tired, can’t keep you warm when it’s cold outside, can’t heal you when break your bones, can’t rescue you when you’re drowning or in danger, and it can’t help you breathe.  In short, it is not a basic need. You can survive without it. But then the speaker observes that some people are dying because they don’t have love in their lives. She goes on to reflect about her own relationship. She thinks that it is very possible that she might compromise on her love or even forget about it in the face of extreme hardship or temptation.

It is easy to misjudge this poem. Reading the first 13 lines, you get the impression that the speaker is a cynical person.  On the 14th line, the speaker repeats the phrase “It may well be”, emphasizing that she is not a strong person and might give up her love if she finds herself in a difficult situation. The poem ends with “I do not think I would”. There is no dramatic expression of emotion in the last line. It is just a simple statement of  the speaker’s intention, and it is here where you realize  how deceptively romantic the poem is. Here is a person who knows the limitations of love. Here is a person who is well aware of her own weakness and yet decides to stick with love. She is not so practical and cynical, afterall. What could be more romantic than someone who, with calm determination, makes up her mind to love against all odds?

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2011/02/love-poems/feed/ 17 http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/07/honing-my-haiku-eye-6/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/07/honing-my-haiku-eye-6/#comments Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:10:56 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=2042

foul mood and tyrant sun

vanquished, out of mind

bright pink tree!

These sightless vines-

Who tells them just

Where to climb?

Hey inchworm!

Finish a leaf

Before you munch on another

Don’t wanna share

My garden with a worm

Wasteful, picky eater

Tiny leaves spread out

Embracing the sun

Why do plants

Do their growing

When we’re not watching?

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2010/01/honing-my-haiku-eye-3/feed/ 0 http://chiquibaylon.net/2009/08/honing-my-haiku-eye-2/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2009/08/honing-my-haiku-eye-2/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:54:08 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=1367

Still on bare but bent

Pine branches -

The weight of  bygone winters

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2009/08/honing-my-haiku-eye-2/feed/ 0 http://chiquibaylon.net/2009/05/honing-my-haiku-eye/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2009/05/honing-my-haiku-eye/#comments Fri, 29 May 2009 20:04:42 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=1254

At noon time

Morning Glory mirrors

Blue skies above

Tired by sundown

Morning Glory puts on

Purple nightgown

Published by Tuttle Publishing, “HAIKU Asian Arts & Crafts For Creative Kids”  by Patricia Donegan is a great book I stumbled upon while scanning the public library shelves for children’s books. I borrowed it not for my kids, but for myself. I’m glad I did. It further strengthened and enriched my knowledge of the Japanese literary form. Who says adults can’t learn much from kidstuff? Sometimes I am amazed when I think of how reading to my second grader has taught me tons of new knowledge. Wish I had read this when I was teaching literature. This is one good tool for teachers. And wannabe writers like me.

There are some fun writing exercises in the book. The haikus you see above are the result of the exercises I did. I enjoyed doing them and I hope to do more in the future. Brace yourselves! You’re about to be bombarded by my poetry, whether you like it or not.

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2009/05/honing-my-haiku-eye/feed/ 0 http://chiquibaylon.net/2009/05/into-bugs/ http://chiquibaylon.net/2009/05/into-bugs/#comments Fri, 29 May 2009 02:08:26 +0000 Chiqui http://chiquibaylon.net/?p=1230

Ladybug

by David L. Harrison

Is it a

boy?

Is it a

girl?

To me

it looks

like neither.

I wonder

if a ladybug

can

tell the

difference

either.

My son’s into bugs these days. Two weeks ago he was catching ladybugs with his bug collector set. Now he’s looking around for a praying mantis. With his magnifying glass he’s examined a rolly polly, a fly, and another insect we can’t identify.  (Of course I did most of the bug catching.) For bedtime he asks me to read the poems of David L. Harrison in the book, “Bugs – poems about creeping things”. Isn’t it wonderful to be a child?

It’s incredible how even the scraggliest and  ugliest of  bushes in our  apartment  garden can put on a head-turning  show in springtime

Seeing all these pretty things everywhere reminds me of a  poem written by Sylvia Plath. Two years ago, I asked my sister to read it. When she was done, she returned it to me apologizing that she wasn’t the poetic type so she couldn’t understand it. This post is an attempt to simplify the poem’s message for the benefit of my sister and for all the non-poetic types out there.

Spinster

by Sylvia Plath

Now this particular girl

During a ceremonious April walk

With her latest suitor

Found herself, of a sudden, intolerably struck

By the birds’ irregular babel

And the leaves litter.

By this tumult afflicted, she

Observed her lover’s gestures unbalance the air,

His gait stray uneven

Through a rank wilderness of fern and flower.

She judged petals in disarray,

The whole season sloven.

How she longed for winter then! -

Scrupulously austere in its order

Of white and black

Ice and rock, each sentiment within border,

Exact as a snowflake.

But here — a burgeoning

Unruly enough to pitch her five queenly wits

Into a vulgar motley–

A treason not to be borne. Let idiots

Reel giddy in bedlam spring:

She withdrew neatly.

And round her house she set

Such a barricade of barb and check

Against mutinous weather

As no mere insurgent man could hope to break

With curse, fist, threat

Or love, either.

Once upon a time , there was a girl. She took a walk with her “latest suitor”, a phrase suggesting that she’s had other suitors in the past. (picky girl) As they walked, she noticed the birds calling to each other. Unlike most people, she didn’t enjoy the sound they made. It was just “babel” to her, confused noise, a racket.  When she looked at the man beside her she noted how ungraceful his movements were as he manuevered his way  through the dense growth. She was turned off.  She thought that the whole  spring season was just one big mess.

Third stanza tells of how she prefers winter and its simple, neat, and well-defined colors. Just white and black. (Can’t really blame her. There are many colors out there I can’t properly identify. Turquoise is one. Gosh, I can’t even spell it with confidence!) You can’t go wrong with white and black. Then suddenly in the 4th line the poem shifts. It’s not talking about seasons anymore, but about the spinster’s heart. She’s the type of person who likes to keep her emotions under control, “each sentiment within border”. She’s ice (cold) and rock (hard). In her heart she wants order, discipline, and exactness–reason symbolized by winter. Clearly she is Plato’s disciple.

After talking about winter the author brings the reader’s attention back to spring. If the spinster views winter as symbolizing reason, then spring and all its tumult symbolizes emotions. The flourishing life  all around her muddles and upsets her senses.  Makes her head spin. Such disorganized growth is offensive to her. No, she’s not crazy enough to let her guard down and join the birds, the bees, and the salamanders in their springtime mayhem. “She withdrew neatly”. The author stresses the idea of order and neatness again. (On top of being a killjoy, the spinster could probably have OCD, too.) She pulls into herself, puts up walls around her “house” or heart for protection. No man can hurt her. The walls keep bad elements out. Sadly, this security system also keeps love from coming in.

]]> http://chiquibaylon.net/2009/04/spring-is-here/feed/ 4