dawn (agsapa): lyric poem
I take a break from my haiku to share an exhilarating moment I’ve had when my poem in Iluko, the dialect I was born with but never wrote with until now, was published in Bannawag, a vernacular magazine of the Ilocanos in northern Philippines.
Writing from the spirit for me is true writing. While I’m re-learning my tongue like a child, I find in it each time the soul of my expression. The source of my anguish must be its imprisonment in the tangled web of borrowed thought and language. But kneading them together now has allowed me bouts of sheer joy.
agsapa
(as featured poem in winningwriters.com Newsletter, Spring 2010, with Iluko version as edited and published in Bannawag, the Ilocano vernacular magazine of the Ilocos region in northern Philippines, May 16, 2009 and English version as translated by the author)
in Iluko
dagiti bituen idi mangngegda
ti as-asug
dagiti bulong iti sipnget
dagiti pinatanor ti lawag
iti danarudor
dagiti agam-ammangaw
awan pakpakada
ti yuuli ti lam-ek
kadagiti di pay nabungon
a kaipasngay
nagkaribuso
dagiti nayaplag a bulong
bayat ti isasangpet
ti ulep a makapurar
nagkurno
dagiti hasmin
kas man la agpakpakawan
narurosda
iti ima
ti maladaga
nagbukelda a kuentas
ti agsapa
dawn
(a loose translation with some nuances substituted as in some verbs, which in Iluko already imply a subject, and nouns that need no adjectives)
startled,
stars fell in the dark
among leaves
pining over lost suns–
loves
that light birthed
drowned in the roar of the
faithless
unbidden
a freeze crept,
swaddling
the newborn
leaves whirled
onto a fractured cloud,
stars splattered, blinding
the lost
jasmine blossoms
curtsied
as if penitent
shedding their petals
in the palm
of the newborn blossoms
bloomed into a garland for
dawn
Copyright (c) 2010 by Alegria Imperial
September twilight–for Peggy
September twilight–
waiting for sparrows
to share a song
for Peggy Willis Lyles on her flight to infinity. . . Thank you Peggy!
Last lines to treasure:
Subject: submissionto turtlerock@att.net
Hi Peggy,
I’ts been a long drought of haiku for me. But here I am, giving it a try again.
Alegria
On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 10:07 AM, <turtlerock@att.net> wrote:
Dear Alegria,
I’m in the hospital. Would you please send these again in about 3 weeks when I expect to be fine?
Thanks,
Peggy
Alegria Imperial to turtlerock
Show details Jul 11
Oh nooo! I hope you’ll be fine and I do wish you well. I’m sending you Aureola cascade thoughts flowing into a pool. May the quiet ripples heal you.
I’ll re-submit my haiku in Aug. or early Sept.
Take care.
Alegria
About
autumn wind
wondering about lilies
in a mountain pond
Tell me a writer who really gets a satisfying jornal, in Spanish a daily wage or its equivalent, and I’ll bare a spirit in constant bouts of doubtfulness. Does a writer earn more because of what he writes and how he does it? Or is a writer paid more or less because of who he is? Is it money or honor he expects to receive?
Ahhh … but money as wage, and praise or honor as reward would be too predictable, too common as Job lamented in the Book of Job. It is in these lines that read: “Is not man’s life on earth nothing more than pressed service, his times no better than hired drudgery? Like the slave, sighing for the shade, or the workman with no thought but his wages, months of delusion I have assigned to me, nothing for my own but nights of grief. Lying in bed I wonder, ‘When will it be day?’ Risen I think, ‘How slowly evening comes!’
Restlessly I fret till twilight falls. Swifter than a weaver’s shuttle my days have passed, and vanished, leaving no hope behind. Remember that my life is but a breath, and that my eyes will never again see joy.”
Not money but joy is the ultimate wage as the passage implies. And joy is not hard to earn for it is in everyday life if we have eyes to see, a nose to smell, fingers to touch, ears to hear–a heart beating. This to me, is how a writer earns a daily wage. His wages then take the guise of treasures his heart can transfigure into a universe of thought that taps into other hearts, that causes a swirl in the depth of other souls, or that makes wings to sprout on leaden heels.
Sometimes not joy but rueful, poignant moments are my pick. Take what I earned once: On my walk home in my neighborhood, I caught two clumps of snowdrops–such tiny blossoms smaller than fingertips that do not look up but shyly droop close to black patches on the ground winter has frozen. That afternoon in the frosty wind, they trembled as if ready to turn away and run but how could they? For that poignant moment on seeing the wintry rain beat on the fragile snowdrop–as if pushing it to go home now, go to sleep–I earned my jornal, my daily wage.
Once on summer walk, the crackle of dried leaves just hit me both like the laughter of children and sobs long suppressed. Neither one of them would resolve the dryness, but I recalled how each does bring tears: laughter for joy, sobs for healing that comes with the release of a dammed-up pain. My jornal that day came as two haiku.
Fall has since shortened the day and the heart begins to crave for lost space that it doesn’t even recall which or where. I feel that most treasures have turned into mush so much so I wouldn’t be able to sift them off the ground. Yet I caught the dying day yesterday–so glorious in the gold of autumn it opened a flip side of serene heaven. Blades of grass coated in diadems of rain that carpet the lawns render royal walks poor by imitation. A burst of red maple against an inky blue sky humbled me, a soul bragging about her skill to recreate beauty in words.
I suppose I’m taking Job’s reflections to heart. I’d rather not gloss over each day and look beyond what’s there, right before me, or else fragile as is my breath one day “my eyes may never again see joy” to write. With what then will I compare the eternal joy, the ultimate wage I await?
Yet for now, as other eyes hanker to make the invisible visible, I put a tag on some moments of joy. Like on seeing the snowdrops, I paid myself $200 as my jornal.
What could have been yours?
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