WOODEN FLOORS

Wooden floors

creak

Not of years

That ride them

But of footfalls

That stay

awhile

Only.

T-SHIRT NI TATA NEGRO

Hulamon ko
Ang T-shirt ni Tata Negro
Usa pa mulamano
Ni Dodong Maabi-abihon
Ugma sayo, maligo
Sa pantaw,
Isul-ob ang T-shirt,
Manghinapay
Dayong lugsong
Sa duot-duot sa
Piniliay.
Unya taod-taod,
Sa pagsanting sa bungol
Nga dunggan,
Mubutar
Sa libat nga
Dodong Maabi-abihon.

THE PROBLEM WITH WAITING

There are moments in the middle of my idle hours that I snatch a look at my nails and think how they could use a trip to a salon or something and have some much-needed polish just like in the good old days. It has been quite a while really. Our neighbor used to come once a week to give us this service. These days though, life is standing frozen still. The waiting for a career in tow has immobilized all the normal goings on in a woman's life. Not that I missed those times where things like nail polish and a hair care are there in a jiffy and at whatever cost.

It has been as dry as the Sahara desert these days.The supply has run out. The faith barn house has almost run out of hay. This waiting anxiety is sapping everyone's energy in the family. I don't mind if this nail in my grubby ring finger is getting brittle and chipped off every toxic second.

I'm almost tempted to think that it was not a leap of faith that I took when I quit a good-paying job for one post that I have been asking from the man above while lying there almost prostrate to the floor one night not so long ago. Since then, everything has been going crazy. My husband had to take a few days off from work as work shipment supplies have chosen a good time to delay in coming to Cebu. Add to this pile of code-reds the enlargement of the heart diagnosis of my mother by her doctor which might stop her small business that has kept everyone's heads above water for a great number of years now. And of course, here comes my brother who seems to make it a signature move at work in every company he is in to find conflicts or some commotions of that sort with office mates, which makes him in the end quit one company work after another.

So what does the jobless eldest sibling with a baby about to starve, a jobless husband plus a chipped nail to boot has got to do? Well, I can use these blank days to stare at walls and yes, wait.

NGANO

Nganong hinuktokan
Pa man ang nanglabay
Kung ang umaabot
Makahulip sa kanhiay?
Sama sa adlaw
Nga mugitib
Ug unya mubiya
Sa may kasadpan
Nga dili mananghid
Apan unya mutumaw ra
Gihapon
Aron pagsubang
Pag-usab.

SOME SIGNS OF TIMES?

How does one get away from this heat that is almost synonymous to a volcanic eruption minus the lava? Ahh, gone are those days where May is the onset of the impending showers which should signal the end of summer at last. Summer used to spell a steamy get-away from all forms of routine and office hullabaloos.

The earth these days is on the verge of becoming like another Mars or worse than a sick planet. It seems to have forgotten time and seasons of the year. Media and scientists have relegated all these as man's fault. Probably. I'd say, the signs of times have started to make things plain to us.

Yesterday, the entire Cebu has witnessed a breathtaking view of the sun surrounded with what looks like colored rings around it. Talks and paranormal views went around and got sold like hot rice cakes. People seem to believe that whatever it is that the Omnipotence has in his grace and loving kindness lent us would finally be snatched from us. Time would finally elapse on us. Maybe. We have been given enough warning already. We only have a few more days probably to make things better, to make lives a little comfortable, to make summers more livable where beach moments should be fun instead of a risk, where children are finally free to roam under the heat of the smiling sun.

A WOMAN'S CURSE

A man's pride is perhaps the heaviest cross a woman gets to saddle and live with.

She, at one point or another, knows she just has to keep her mouth shut even if some truths are self-evident--wives' instincts are right more often than not but it is wiser not to rock the boat for some man's fragile pride.

As to how a wife survives or how a husband saves himself from the damaging risk of this dent in his pride, no one knows. As for me, this is one of those curses that Christ died for upon that tree long time ago.

THE SEXY POUNDER

There are clothes that hug you in the wrong places. Places that are meant to measure up certain standard statistics that glossy magazines project as steamy sexy. For my vertically challenged stature plus the excess baggage I carry around these days, rummaging and scavenging clothes are an ordeal. But women, ahh... women, we never get the hang of it. We'd rather go to calvary carrying our heavy selves just so we could stick our sweaty pimply nose to every corner that is marked "Ukay-ukay" and "Marked-down Items on the Lose" to find what finally fits the quirky shapes we are in.

But ahh, it's not the same woman now that I was. I don't speak of the added curves splattered all over my anatomy. I refer to a more simple things in life that I now seek more. Time must have changed. Although the woman in me still sticks her nose to these smelly staples, the list that I keep weekly has trimmed down to what matter the most. The pounds that I carry now used to be a curse to my prebaby days. Strangely, I am proud to wear them.

I call myself the sexy pounder. And I smile at the thought of coming home to my Shekinah and Joe Marie who reaffirm my view of myself--doubtful or not.