Waterhole and Other Poems

"I walked the bridge to its far end and beyond,
And down the river to the sea I cast my pole.
It was a fight I fought, it was no longer game,
And it was neither fish nor dream I caught." AVR

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature - School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class Mon to Fri

 Waterhole

Memories come easy on this foot bridge

Many years ago I built across a stream,

Stream in monsoon and pond in summer,

Alug, as the old folk call it – waterhole.

It was my waterhole, I saw the world in its water;

Images of airplanes cruising, birds migrating,

Clouds in many patterns, many faces and hues,

The arena of wit and skill, fishing for hours.

And fishing not for fish but dreams,

Dreams about far places, of beautiful things,

Dreams almost real, even as they fade away

In ripples and into the dusk.

One day I woke up and found my waterhole

Swallowed up by floodwater from the hills.

Washing away the air castles I built,

And down its path it took summer away forever.

I walked the bridged to its far end and beyond,

And down the river to the sea I cast my pole.

It was a fight I fought, it was no longer game,

And it was neither fish nor dream I caught.  

            Fallow

When I was a boy I would walk the empty fields

       when harvest was over

And watch the maya glean on the leftovers

       like the old women

In the paintings of Millet and Brueggel

       which inspired Amorsolo

To paint the ricefields with the richness

       of Rembrandt’s colors.

And I would roll up the straw mulch

       and catch the aestivating frogs,

Now brown instead of green for they mimicked

       the surrounding they were hiding in:

Geometric deep cracks where the soil

       was fertile and rich in humus,

For they yielded larger and fatter catch.

And I knew the alug, the depression

       where the water receded,

Harboring dalag encrust in its muddy deep

       ready to spring to life

With the crayfish and snail and catfish

       likewise ensconced,

When the first true rain comes in May

       or April if monsoon is early,

I, too, would doze on my pet carabao lazily browsing,

       its body as lean as the plants in summer.

Then the afternoons became cooler each day,

       the dragonflies hovered lower and in hordes.

Distant thunder were heard getting closer and closer –

     Until the winds hissed

And the whole sky fell into downpour.

The fields began to wake up from deep slumber

       and I knew summer is over.

Fallow is a season of reflection, an experience

       shall always remember. ~

                                                        Masks

Ann, Leo and Matt, are they?

Could you be as serious as your looks,

     Or as weird as your thoughts?

Could you be my children,

     Or those of a beast or alien?

Mask, mask, mask,

     You hide the truth

Like the rind of a fruit.

           Cariton

Mount the cariton, my father wouyld say,

     When it was harvestime ,

And I would go and get our palay share,

     But the joy is in the ride, the fields,

And talking to the beast like Daniel,

     Or Hercules at times.    

The sugar cane and yam on the way

     thinned every time I passed,

The wild pigeons were getting shy

     every time I missed with my slingshot;

But not the maya,

     they came by army and were not afraid,

Even if the cariton had not had any greasing

     for some time.

I kept sentry on my rama until the mudfish,

     ar-aro, gurami, and catfish

Were big enough, or the water had receded,

     whichever came first.

The cariton was my chariot and truck,

     my canoe in monsoon flood,

My spaceship to the stars, my traveling home;

     jute sacks were also for mat;

A clay pot on three stones made a kitchen,

     plates of banana leaves.

My bolo was knife, shovel, saw, weapon

     that go with the cariton.

There was no computer then but Labang,

     the bullock knew the lipit very well,

Giving me confidence to sleep and to dream,

     waking up only at my destination,

Or when he gives the signal, kicking off flies,

     or snorting against smudge

Trained against our trees to flower

     early or on time.

Years, many years had passed, and I,

     with this story to pass on

To my children dreaming on my lap

     listening to it more like a tale,

Said, “It is true, but that was many,

     many years ago.”

One day in a museum I saw something

     for whatever reason.

 “Look, there!” I gathered my children.

     It is an old, old cariton. ~

         

                          Transience of Childhood 
                                                        Painting (15.5 ft x 5 ft) by AV Rotor

This is a beautiful world to the young,

Faces grow on clouds and kites fly high,

In kaleidoscope against the setting sun. 

The trees sing and nests sweetly cry.

If for all the fish and the Siberian breeze, 

The fields are still, save a songbird,

The clock comes to a stop in hammock’s ease -

But a chime yonder is urging to be heard.

Not enough is summer, transient is the game; 

It starts with glee and ends with a sigh,

And childhood ends. But never is the aim 

Of the sky to make the little ones cry.

Freud and Thoreau – these great minds foresaw

What makes a man, the child of years ago,

Sitting by the pond or climbing on a bough,

His kite rising to heaven’s glow.

Painting presented to Mayor Jose Tabanda III by Dr. Abercio V. Rotor,
as a remembrance of happy childhood, the impressions of which are indelible
even to those who are far away from their beloved hometown. May 23, 2005