Songs For Mnemosyne

The Day of Reckoning has come. My beloved country will choose its development destiny for another 6 years. Later still, the machines will count VOTES THAT REFUSED TO BE BOUGHT,  and they will be GOLD - rare maybe, but shining and incorruptible. I am THANKFUL - to the torch-bearers. to the torch-passers. to those who keep fighting and paving for better and brighter tomorrows. to the heavens, for guiding another battle well-fought. "And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not." (Gal 6:9)

I didn't know that I could get a hug from a stranger and make a seatmate leave within at most 15 minutes of conversation inside a bus. This is not something I am proud of. Share-worthy though, in many purposeful levels. I was in a bus en route to Pacita, San Pedro last 5/4/2013 beside an old lady when a man in his 50's (probably) sat beside me. The TV was tuned to Eat Bulaga's Pinoy Henyo with students from Muntinlupa National High School trying to guess a word. I was partly skimming a book and partly watching the tv to prevent myself from dozing off when out of nowhere, the man asked me pointing to the TV: "Is that your culture? That's crazy(pronounced as kreysi)." Awkward silence and knitted brows from me. He continued, in his thick European accent, loudly and slowly, as if talking to a child: "You see, I am Education Missionary and in a mission to Las Pinas, Paranaque City here in the Philippines, I ask a child, 'What is the cap...

Johanna - happy, bedimpled, and sans her front teeth :) Dear Johanna Banana, You will be recognized later for your scholastic achievement.Your school calls it "Academic Excellence" for Kindergarten. I am not sure if it is as important to you, as it is to me. Practicing dances and noisily strumming your guitar seem important to you these past days than practicing how to correctly receive your diploma. :) As I climb the stage to join you in a school recognition that you may not yet fully comprehend in meaning, I will climb with you recognizing some of your achievements unknown to many. This is not in any order of significance, because with you, I never rank - everything that happens is in equal degree of importance. Here are the Bow's Awards to Her Beloved Arrow (Gibran): *The Best Alarm Award  - Where all sorts and volumes of alarm clocks failed, YOU prevailed. Thank you anak for waking me up all days of my employment here in Manila. All my Perfect Att...

Galenna, my youngest sister, posted an FB status which caught my interest - hence, the online exchange below. T'is to celebrate her creativity, so that she may write more. Galenna: if warmth were a blanket of deceit i would, in solitude, embrace the cold. Ging: cold evening, where is thy sting? my Lord's warmth renews every morning! Galenna: morning, how fleeting thou art! whither thou goest, the heart followeth. but oh, t'is dusk... 'tis dusk! Ging: t'is creeping dusk that lures souls in, calleth so enduring; but fleeting might be, art thou morning; ever faithful thou cometh in the name learning! Galenna: learning, ever we are; that a star though near its death, spilleth out brilliance across the air, what then is ours to bequeath: charred mind of ideas or a simple life well-lived? Ging: a life well-lived is not at all simple; its creeds - it bleedeth, in consuming darkness - its light must be weildeth. so i sayeth- we bequ...