Poetic verses for Faith and Elmo, written by the husband a decade ago.

Baby Talk
(for our 4-month-old Elmo)

Ang sabi sa babasahin,
kausapin lang raw kita.
At maipupunla sa isip mo
ang mga binhi ng aking salita.
Maaani ng iyong dila
sa pagtanda, upang patalasin
ang bawat katagang
lalaya sa iyong bibig at diwa.

Sta Romana Village,
San Jose City, Nueva Ecija,
August 27, 2000


Leap of Faith
(for Faith, my 19-days old daughter
practice ng stream of consciousness, kung anung pumasok sa isip, siyang sinulat)

This is a poetic irony. Mute as I am,
Here, unable to glue my collections
Of birthing images. So helpless
I might blanket my self in a curse,
But in thinking so, had myself resurrected
From a long death. Only to be remurdered.
Perhaps I should summon spontaneity to choke
Every gap and reason, and let my fragmented
Assortments pair themselves as they please.
Let them speak. Let themselves speak.
Gag my learning of poetry and let it thread
Thru their intestinal souls like your gentle yawning
At the crack of dawn:

Orange-stripped cat with an expectant father,
Barefoot as the female guard calls his wife’s
Name. Grandmother selling us her
Earrings to buy her daugther-in-law’s
Medicine. A hall of visitors waiting
For the clock to strike five and aunts hiding
Formula milk for their nieces and nephews.

And if these seem not enough, recall those
Beads you’ve touched at your fatherly senses
Reciting prayers for last minute miracles
The way God had turned water into wine.
She can be pretty, she can be ugly,
But please let her eyes stay two.
An extra in between is cute for Greek
Myth but we’re more comfortable at the company
Of each for each eyebrow. Curve her the lips
Of Miss Piggy or Kermit but never rest a fault
That would crack the banshee wails and mermaid
Serenades of her chordless adolescence.
I’ll be the best father there is but please, please,
Let her be normal as she ought to be,
No pig’s tails, nor frog’s feet.

But then how should I part this chopped up prose,
When I failed to mention about the illegalities
Of bottle feeding hospital-born babies
After my indented stanza or when at citing my litany
Of prayers I failed to mention the texts messages I’ve sent
Asking for more prayers — my wife’s at the delivery
Room at the moment, pray for her and our daughter,
Please. This is another case of my first son
Repeated. Of communist and atheist fathers
Turning to prayer when a child is in the offing.
Those  Sunday afternoons at UP chappel,
While in-between the Philcoa trip and I is a vast
Sunken garden opening my lack of faith to the fires
Of a moment’s emptiness and distrust. Forgetful of how
A sea is turned into blood and parted at a swish
Of Grandpa’s walking stick. Much like a stream
Of consciousness in paper, violating every rule
There is about norms and order. Just like this moment,
When after Basil had finished his romance of an
Afternoon rain would later court the amplified speaker
Loud with a promise of rerouting to past emotions long gone.

And there you were after four hours of waiting.
Asleep across the silicon window,
Wrapped in your elder brother’s baby clothes.

Here I’ll lay mute images, feelings deaf of spellings —
For gaps after gaps after gaps, we were there,
Feeling each other’s heartbeat in a stretched arm’s silence.
I trace your facial lines the way I mastered my first
Geometric figures when I was three. Comparing your
Features with us. Ah those are not your mother’s lips
This time! Haha. Your nose seems mine but triangular holes reject
My claims otherwise. Which is good.  Very good indeed.
And there is no pig’s tail, there are no frog’s feet.

Then I might have not cut your umbilical cord this time
But something spatial has traversed
The glass partition in between. Connecting us to an
Indescernible point of tangency where the courage
Is paired helplessly with faith to borne forth rhymes
From the pages of the miraculous walking stick.
Seal the lines, bring in the last dot.
This is end, most wanted, most expected.

26 December 2001