Sunday, September 27, 2009

Typhoon Ondoy Flushes Metro Manila (09sep26)



Suddenly, we realize once again that Nature is still in control over our lives and not us who controls it. A wake-up call? Yet in the midst of this new calamity, we see so much compassion and heroism and, therefore, enough reason for hope and renewal.

Manariwa tayo!


Photo above: Street in a Quezon City subdivision becomes a river for kids to splash in.

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Baguio Haikus (A Hundred Years After)




A complex city

Reduced to a dilemma,

Crowded hideaway.


A monstrosity

Transformed into grotesqueness,

A concrete pine tree.


Where are the cone trees

Glistening on the hillsides?

Cut! Behind billboards!


A mall-shaped giant

Sucks the city of its life:

Light, water, space, sense.


A friend of mine said:

Here's proof to all of where not

To build a city.


The frost disappeared,

The iced-covered roadsides passed

A long time ago.


Where is the native

With swarthy skin and g-string?

Where is innocence?


Whose vision was it

To raise a town in the clouds?

There, ask the horses!


Before a town rose

There lay a village serene,

Then the bombs rained down.


Over this city

They've fought to get to the gold;

Now there's only fools'.


City-dwellers come

Not to hike pine-scented trails

But to dance and drink.


The height of folly

Was not the Babel Tower;

It's now, it's this, here!


Faith's grand melting pot

Rests on this pillared plateau,

Each heart a stranger.


If they all declare

To agree to disagree,

Who will lead the blind?


Strawberry, lemon,

Broccoli, beans and carrots:

Live, grow, give, nourish.


Here is nature's nest;

The good, the vile may leave it

Better or viler.


Thanks for all the years

We walked the dark lonely paths

To find life's treasures.