Memorial [Photo-Hunt]

When I die, give what is left of me to children.
If you need to cry, cry for your brothers walking beside you.
Put your arms around anyone
and give them what you need to give to me.
I want to leave you with something,
something better than words or sounds.
Look for me in the people I have known and loved.
And if you cannot live without me, then let me live on in your eyes,
your mind and your acts of kindness.
You can love me most by letting hands touch hands
and letting go of children that need to be free.
Love does not die, people do.
So when all that is left of me is love...
Give me away.

~ The Legacy

Photos were taken at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes Cemetery), a memorial cemetery for Filipino military personnel from privates to generals, as well as heroes and martyrs, former presidents and statesmen. Among those buried in this cemetery are most of the defenders of Bataan, Corregidor and other battlefields fought during World War II. Located at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig.

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Ball of fire [Sky-Watch Friday]

I listened to the hush of this glorious sunset as Manila Bay bathe in the crimson evening glow. Like copper in the furnace, the horizon burns and the city eagerly waits for the night to cover its sorrows.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Posted for Sky-Watch Friday

My Father, the greatest

I wrote this poem almost 20 years ago in honor of my father who passed away in 1979. This was published in a national women's magazine for their Fathers' day issue. I am sharing this with all the fathers---the men of our hearts, our champions, our biggest admirers.

On your shoulder lies

the burden of the world

as you struggled against the odds

to make me live.

The life you bravely faced alone

the battles you fought and won

are like a candle in a dark room

giving me hope to carry on.

I know you wouldn't surrender

though your brow grow damp with pain

you never flinch, wince nor groan,

but bear in silence and drift to dream.

You were unconquerable, my Father

until Death soothed your weary mind

you didn't resist nor try to fight

instead, you embraced Death so tight.

You are the greatest, as you lay triumphant

for what is to die, but to free life

from its restless tides,

and to seek God unencumbered?

Metamorphosis

a shift will break

the night

in my head,

i will sleep in all four corners...

we left the precipice

for different reasons;

i was through collecting taxidermy,

you were practicing to become a bird...

emerging between two flares,

this strange kink in your prominence

belonging no more

to one place than the next,

moving sidelong through the flowers,

fast disappearing...

i bring you several years at once,

of last days and future mornings

grafting a place in the sky,

it's a hobby along with beachcombing;

until you evolve, serenely

into someone i have always wanted.

Pusa-kal

-for that cat squashed to pulp infront of La Salle,

and the cat I met last night.

he might have crossed without looking

or his nimble little feet slipped

from the island just as the light turned green

he might have spotted another alley cat

staring with the hots of a Friday evening

he might have been challenged

to test his catty prowess---that swiftness

that sharpens the keen kitty alertness

after months, perhaps even years

of street loneliness

he might have thought of adventures

daddy cat would have warned him

or he might have realized

that nine lives just too much for a lifetime

mommy cat wouldn't have recognized him

nor those who've got the sharp little eyes

for his streamlined leanness

he's just another mat of white fur carpet

soiled at the edges with the grime of wheels

stiff at the seams where the stitches of life gave in---

faceless the bones

which have shaped his feline days

lie scattered

flattened into rags

like tattered snippets of guilt

the rush hour have transformed

into dry absorbers of the day's

doggedness.