Kanlaon

First of all, I’m in such a good mood these days, and I can’t explain it. Yesterday, I finally reached dearest Mum after seven or eight tries, and even though she came to the phone breathless and asked me, “What’s wrong?” as though she didn’t know it was Christmas, I was still in a good mood. But, as Daily Horoscope said this morning: “If a plate of good fortune gets handed to you, don’t send it out to be analyzed.” (Ha ha ha ha! That Yahoo Horoscope writer is such a clown!!!)

Or, as Master Shih Cheng-Yen might have said (if he had thought of it first): Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Yes, indeed-y, even though today marks the end of hubby’s four-day work break and he is throwing a tantrum — What? You say you didn’t know 50-plus-year-old men could throw tantrums? Let me tell you–

Just in the the nick of time I remember that I have pledged myself to practice the Still Thoughts of Sage Master Shih Cheng-Yen, specifically, Still Thought No. 47, to wit: In life, not all balls are good ones; only a seasoned batter can make a hit every time.

Here I go again, wasting time, dear blog reader, when what I really set out to do when I logged on to son’s computer was to tell you that today, I was in such an unshakably good mood (and had tons of time on my hands, TONS, since hubby resolutely refused to take me to see Blood Diamond) that I decided to tote up blog stats and figure out which posts were the top 10 of the year (or, at least, top 10 since this blog’s birthday, July 2006). And I came up with these 🙂

Best Travel Movies of 2005-2006, Thank you, niece G for giving me the “hook” that allowed me to post the list. Urban Memories: New York City, Early Eighties, Thank you to the CITY, I’ve had a love affair with you ever since I first met you.. Still Thoughts, Thank you, Mum, for priceless parrot outfit and for insisting that I wear it the day I visited Manila National Book Fair. For All You Lovers of Harney & Sons Pomegranate Oolong Tea, Thank you, McSweeney’s, for rejecting my piece! 2006 Book Round-Up, Thank you to self for being such an indefatigable reader and for obssessively listing everything that I read. Filipino American Studies at Skyline College, Thank you Liza E for being such a GREAT teacher! I thoroughly enjoyed visiting your class that day. Kapitan Tiago, Thank you, JR, for writing such a magnificent book! (Who really knew, all those decades ago, when you were stuck in exile in Dapitan, that you would become so HOT in 2006???) Some Signs That the Christmas Season Really Is Upon Us, Thank you, hubby, for performing manly annual ritual of putting up icicle lights! You cursed mightily but you did NOT fall down and neither did the lights! NYTBR, Dec. 3: The “Holiday Books” Issue, simply thank you to NYTBR for — well, for being YOU! Gifts of the Season: Two Poems, Thank you L and D for being such excellent, excellent writers!!!

By two poets I love: Luisa A. Igloria, from her collection TRILL & MORDENT (WordTech Editions); and D. A. Powell, from his collection COCKTAILS (Graywolf Press)

“Argument and Consolation”
— Luisa A. Igloria

The poet asks am I leading
the life that my soul wants to lead,
am I desiring to be someplace else
other than where I am and thus being a thorn
in the side of the god who loves me and suffers
because there’s something he sees and I don’t —
presumably the lives ensuing from all the other
choices I haven’t but could have made at some
indeterminate moment in the past; the possibility
I might look better, be wealthier and more at ease
with my station in life : instead of a bank teller,
a lawyer; instead of a lawyer, a judge; instead of a scientist,
a CEO. This poet lists the usual examples, things
that have apprently little to do with a life of passion
or the imagination: jobs like selling real estate, jobs
that my colleague and former neighbor Tim refers to as
jobby jobs in a poem published recently by New Letters. Then
there’s the issue of who I’m with versus who I’ll find, after all,
I’m destined for. And what about those who’ve loved
more than once but, other than for this shortcoming,
have vented no more rancor on this life than the occasional
resistance at cleaning the bathroom or taking out the trash,
because they didn’t get a full night’s sleep and suffer
a kind of benign neglect at the hands of others?
Take for instance my generous friend, the salt of the earth to all
who know her: she confides there’s a man in England
she’s loved and who’s loved her all these years but isn’t the father
of her children. Given what could have led to that
Nietzschean second
chance, in her case a meeting between flights, she felt
the nervous pulse in her chest as she scanned airport crowds,
wondering if she would recognize him. How plainly she said it —
I knew him right away; I saw he did, too. Yet, knowing
what they did,
the most they shared was a look, hands held for less than an hour.
So much commotion pressed into the avenues of thought and feeling,
though to passersby they were only another silver-haired couple standing quiet by the railing. In the end, the poet I am reading
postulates that the god who loves me and suffers from his
omniscience and my ignorance, is really no wiser than I;
the life I’ve lived and witnessed is the only place I can claim
with some authority. He has no answer either when astrophysicists
ask about our material origins, the true nature of that primordial
cosmic fuck they call the Big Bang; years and years and years after,
we’re still bathed in the wake of invisible ripples, waves of gravity
that gave birth to us. How do you measure the wagging of a finger
from a distance of ten thousand light years? If the air we breathe
pulses with the energy of unseen atoms surviving from
a previous time, who knows for sure if what we’d thought of
all along as a chance encounter, is really a conclusion now
falling into place? Laborious solution, long-hand script
of an equation
written on the darkness of a slate, eons before it arrived;
an emanation
caused by objects colliding in space, producing a trillion
trillion trillion
watts of radiation, so bright it briefly outshines an entire galaxy.

hope you like this new doctor: rachel says in hopeful tones
— D. A. Powell

hope you like this new doctor: rachel says in hopeful tones
and I: too early to tell. though hope does hover in my chest

certainly i’ve abandoned miss america-sized wishes:
world peace? an end to hunger? not while we consume, consume

I make hope the size of a bar of soap: hope-on-a-rope
like “hope there’s not a spider in the shower this morning”

“hope some broadway producer brings back starlight express”
“maybe figs will be available fresh for a longer season

(without the global warming, i should add, in case god listens)”
and “maybe sheila e. will release a disc as good as the glamorous life”

my pulse drums too: a scant crew of leukocytes raise their tiny oars
these few who have not mutinied. I want to lift their spirits

as we’re crossing the equator: showered with a fine warm mist
I sing them a dusty springfield song. soon the cabin’s steamy

and we’re wishin’ and hopin’ like there’s no tomorrow. but there is
already dawn: the passage safe: the mermaids beckon from the cape

— for Rachel Zucker