‘duayya’ (lullaby): taking a break from haiku to free verse
the birds will soon forget
how much the sun cradled the flowers
to bear the seeds
so easily borne
in the wind
so swift
to scatter to land
and bed and root
and be transformed
but for now the singing
heightens
each day as the sun begins
a lullaby
so unlike us
so unaware of our songs
we bloom and bed
and scour around
so we may seed
you and i
but fail to find a lullaby
so swift to turn away to forget
why we held hands in the moonlight
Also posted at my other blog, inner spaces, at http://gimperial.wordpress.com
*duayya (lullaby in Iluko of the northernmost region of the Philippine archipelago, my native tongue)
my bilingual haiku, tanka and free verse for National Poetry of the Month guest post at haikudoodle
Excerpts from Margaret Dornaus’ blog today
http://haikudoodle.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/national-poetry-month-guest-post-6-alegria-imperial/
(or click on haikudoodle on my blogroll)
haiku
(Iluko with English translations by the author)
batbato iti
kapanagan
sabsabong ti sardam
stones
on the riverbank
dawn flowers…
LYNX XXIV: February 2009
tanka (Iluko with English translations by the author)
ayuyang-limdo
diay aripit ballasiw
ditoy a sumken
sinit a nalidliduan
nagtinnag nga anem-em
a haunt for sadness
the dried creek at the crossroad
here they recur
those untended flushes
turned chronic fevers…
LYNX XXV (June): 2, 2010
agsapa (in Iluko with translations by the author)
by Alegria Imperial
naimayeng
dagiti bituen idi mangngegda
ti as-asug
dagiti bulong iti sipnget
narba
dagiti pinatanor ti lawag
iti danarudor
dagiti agam-ammangaw
Bannawag, the Ilocano vernacular magazine of the Ilocos region in northern Philippines, May 16, 2009
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….
http://haikudoodle.wordpress.com/2012/04/09/national-poetry-month-guest-post-6-alegria-imperial/
shadows (a haibun)
shadows–
how much longer
can we stay?
Shadows have always fascinated me. As a child, I chased them or rather searched for them. Under trees at high noon when the crown of an acacia tree from across our balcony but covered its root space like a clipped parasol, I’d creep to it and hug the ancient roots, basking in its shadow. By the stream where my grandmother scoured the soot off the iron rice pot and skillet, I’d haunt the silken strips of shadows under bamboo grooves and waited on the engorged shadow of a kingfisher that never failed to fly by; damselflies swarmed around that time, too. But by then, I’d be drawing on the dance of bamboo leaves on the steady current for a clue on which side of the stream is shallowest for me to swim. My grandmother had learned from snoops that I sauntered alone at high noon by the stream–even took dips, shedding off my clothes to wear her pandiling* or tapis** (sarong-like cloth) that when soaked weighed on my body and tended to slip off; I had by then showed signs of turning into a woman. Upbraided, I stopped creeping under the shadowed stream for a while. It was then when I began exploring the wooded orchard of a grandaunt and got chased by a swarm of bees I had disturbed. My granduncle had heard my screams and came with a mosquito net plus some kind of obnoxious spray. I suffered a few stings that my grandaunt soothed with dabs of burnt molasses syrup. I had since then, confined my fascination for shadows under ruins and buildings that block the sun off. Why this disdain for the sun, a friend once asked. What answer could I give for some things I have none?
half
of who we are–
shadows
(Prompt from a free-wheeling discussion with Rick Daddario, 19 Planets Art Blog that you can click on my blogroll, about a would-be no-goal project we have on ‘moon and shadows’.)
*Iluko, the tongue of the northernmost region of the Philippine archipelago I was born with
**Pilipino, native language of the Filipinos derived mostly from Tagalog, the dialect of the central plains in Luzon, the biggest of 7,100 islands, where Manila and also my region are located. Filipinos speak four major dialects of the 87 with Pilipino (and English in its varied adaptations to tongue and colloquial expressions) spoken in most of the islands. I speak but can’t write proficiently in Pilipino.
Copyright (c) 2011 by Alegria Imperial
dawn, a bilingual poem in English and Iluko for One Shot Wednesday (re-post)
In the spirit of first anniversaries that One Shot Wednesday is celebrating, I wish 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, my first ever in the dialect, in Bannawag, a vernacular magazine of the Ilocanos in northern Philippines I read as a child.
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 as in this poem has allowed me bouts of sheer joy. I seem to be writing through this ‘duality’ since then–the borrowed cultures or cultures that impinged on my birth or even in my mother’s womb. And my anguish has lessened since I acknowledged who I am and of what I’m woven.
(as featured poem in winningwriters.com Newsletter, Spring 2010, a loose translation in English by the author 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
(Iluko version as edited and published in Bannawag, the Ilocano vernacular magazine of the Ilocos region in northern Philippines, May 16, 2009)
agsapa
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
Copyright (c) 2010 by Alegria Imperial
Re-post from 9/22/2010 for One Shot Wednesday at One Stop Poetry, the inimtable gathering place for poets and artists that celebrates its First Anniversary today (tomorrow?) Wednesday! I joined in only halfway in November last year after I stumbled on it in patteran’s page. It’s been a blast to get to know the most amazing, the most talented, and gifted poets and artists here. Check us out!
dawn and qarrtsiluni
dawn–
the Sierra Madres peaks
burst in pink
in the bamboo grove
shadows shed off the night–
dawn
glinting–
puddles in rice fields
at dawn
each step
on rice paddies
dawn unfurls
their blush regained–
frangipanis at dawn
dawn from the balcony of Angeles Estates, Munoz (Science City), Nueva Ecija, Philippines
It’s a glorious sight from the balcony of Angeles Estates where I stay when I used to travel north from Manila, and on the highways in Nueva Ecija, the Philippines’ central plains. Dawn has always been my time of day though not as much when I moved to this other side of the hemisphere. On rare mornings though, I catch dawn on tips of conifers–the same pink purple though often with hints of red as I’ve waken to as a child.
Why am I talking of dawn today? Because I feel a new morning just risen, figuratively, with the publication of my three tanka in three languages, English, Spanish and Iluko on http://qarrtsiluni.com (click on my blogroll, too). It comes with a podcast of my reading. You may wish to check it out.
haibun: my first shooting star (para mi hermana, Margaret)
A haibun attempt as promised for Margaret, mi hermana de mi alma, in a comment on Stargazing at haikudoodle
I wrote this as a journal some ten years ago when I stayed at Angeles Estates in Munoz, Nueva Ecija, the Philippines’ central plains. Nothing but acres of rice fields, edged by the Sierra Madres the sky most evenings did tantalize. One evening I finally caught a shooting star…
It flared in the shape of wings, and was gone in a blink – my first shooting star.
Before then, a moon was sailing past its fullness, but brimming in the edges. It was cruising toward a thin veil of clouds, sailing through an iridescent sky. Its ride must have been bumpy on the grainy surface, but dreamy from a tender blue light beaming underneath that sieve.
In the glow, the lawn turned murky beige, the leaves of the escarlatina (frangipani), dark and glinting; and the gumamela blooms, pallid and droopy.
My eyes were trailing a white dog, yellowed under a weak moon, when the star must have started to skid. When I turned to break a branch to whip the ground and drive the dog away—that was when I glimpsed the flare.
It had vanished before I could breathe. I laughed; my laughter had bubbled off my heart without my coaxing. When I turned for someone whom I can tell of my star, the night had turned: the moon had burst out of the clouds, the blooms began to glisten; and the dog was gone.
shooting star—
a flap of wings
the same sky?
AE gardens during the day
Escarlatina in the sun
Also posted in http://www.iluko.com with a few paragraphs which I attempted to translate in Iluko. More pictures and information on the estate at http://www.angelesestates.com
ember/beggang (iluko/english haiku )
morning ember
fanned
by broken word
beggang ti agsapa
naparubruban
ti puted a sarita
I wrote the original in Iluko, the language I was born with but hardly spoke and never written with as an adult, trading it with English, a borrowed language I thought was really mine. Iluko of the northernmost edge of the Philippine archipelago traces its roots in Austronesian language. Rediscovering it has been exhalarating! The truth is, I am writing in both languages now with a deeper sense of where both seem to spring from–my being.
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
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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