A Poem to Water

Of all the four ancient elements of nature,
Fire; wind; water; earth
You resemble mostly of water
Free-flowing without fixed shape
That you could fit in
With everything.

A humble coconut shell
A fractured one would do
A filthy, rusty drum
It can be cleaned anyways
A glass
A cracked glass won’t matter still
Or even the inferior of all inferiors;
A dam in the mountains
That you did accepted quite
Positively no matter
How people cursed that damn

But then you seem
To be so calm
Sleeping at most
Still vibrant listening accepting
Faults; cracks; curses.

Even on the ocean floors
You still keep tranquility
Reflecting the blue colors of the sky;
A sort of connection
Of how happy you are;
I mean how happy we are.

For when the rain comes
And the sky turned dark and angry
You fight, turning into
That same insane color
A rebellion to
fire; earth; wind
Never letting go
Reflecting and connecting
Any sort of color of the sky.

And there I am
The humble coconut shell;
Filthy rusty drum;
That cracked glass;
An old pugnacious debatable dam;
And that insane sky that
Any of those remaining elements
Of nature couldn’t stand.

You simply are running
Off my unsaturated life form
Touching my life
To create rills and gullies
Filling my small rocky stream bed
With a lot of spirit
Guiding my days
Like a young river
Emerging gradually as a porous steam bank
For when I dry out
You still appear to be
Like small streams
Still obliged to return water
In my capillary spaces in my soil
Giving up to make me exist
Joining gullies
Rushing down mountainsides
Streaming across the hills
Until I realized
I am beginning to gather
And assume the promise of my mighty identity.

With the infinite river.

Bored

Just recently, I read a classic novel of George Orwell entitled “The Animal Farm.” I chose to include this in my blog because this indeed stroked me more this week awakening my senses of trying to know more about how I could really make a difference or if I am really making sense staying here in my current company. I would like to quote these lines from the said book:

“Life is miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just food by working to the last atom of our strength, and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end, we are nothing anymore. Life follows the order of nature. It must be. But what happened now? It follows the order of society. Our fertile land is capable of affording food in abundance to an enormous greater number of people. But society built life to imprison abundance; to steal huge part of our labour. It is the root cause of hunger and overwork…”

The above lines were from an old Boar, well a boar; and he can talk! Well, it is not from the mere fact that the boar and the other animals in the book can talk that made me like the book even more but rather the impact of the said lines to me when I first read it. The boar’s striking statement is actually how I am viewing life. For a pig, obviously life is indeed miserable, laborious and short but what I have reflected more to the said line was his world that he grew up with – that is him to be pushed to his job (of eating, sleeping, and be slaughtered…poor fellow) and give more or less a mouthful of food for his survival no matter how would he ever exert effort and try to maximize its usefulness to the whole farm. In effect he is bored, stocked to want change; of rebellion. That is why he took great effort to educate the other animals (which are quite ignorant to understand what he is saying). The middle part of the book states more of rebellion – that all the animals would want to rule the farm for themselves. To kick out the farmer and make the farm as their own – which turned out to be very successful indeed.

The story is quite long but I chose to pick up just this part of the novel to reflect. With the kind of short life that I had, I used to realize if what purpose would I actually give to our country as to make a difference to the society that obviously imprison abundance. Right now, I am actually bored with the kind of environment that I had. I just don’t know if I would stay for so long. Aside from the not so good working culture, I am a bit troubled if I am really into this job. You know I am a marketing bachelor and it is always my passion to market as of my personal goal as to have customer interaction every now and then. I am not actually complaining with the kind of work load that I had and how it makes me have something to eat anyhow. What really is making me bugged out is the way my finances are going.

You know, I rarely sent financial support to my family in the province which is a great shame in my part especially when my Dad was hospitalized just last Friday due to brain seizures. I am out of control that day when I received a call from them begging financial support which in a blink of an eye forced me to send my entire savings for my whole stay in my company. I cannot even visit him in the hospital. What I just made was entirely prayers; or should I say miracles to happen to make him ok.

One day I made a hard conversation with a good friend of mine which works at a well-to-do call center in Makati. He was actually concerned about how on earth am I surviving without even sending financial support to my family before the incident. Actually, I do not know what to say at that moment. I thought of my good trainings at work, the nice treatment of HR, my chosen peers, and the likes that made me think if I would really want to give out these things just for the sake of being financially free. I am not saying that what my company is given me is just enough to make me work to the last atom of my strength. It is just that, I feel concerned about the current situation of my family just recently. I could imagine how my Mom begged money to my relatives and how I am so useless to have of more help in times of need like this. Indeed my usefulness in the project had already gone to the point that I am quite competitive in doing my different functions and how I could already understand them. But what is the sense anyways when I was stocked up in front of the monitor the whole night/day quite discontented with my lousy social environment, with the not that high pay, and unstable working tenure if I know there are still other opportunities hailing for me outside.

Life is supposed to be following the order of nature or rather by society up to this point of time that our country remained poor and still unhealthy brought by exporting its brilliant skilled workers abroad. But what sort of image it now created. Labor seemed to be so stiff in the country that nobody is quite satisfied with what they earn – er with what I earn. Our fertile land remained to be vacant; unproductive with lack of human hands to be motivated to start a living. It is just because, our huge part of our fruits of labor were always being stolen by society to build us as their very own human hands creating profits to pay our foreign debts; or rather they prefer to want more of these profits down to their pockets. And yes indeed. We are far from the Boar’s view of having a rebellion for changed knowing that the president is entirely satisfied seeing our currencies go higher for lots of remittances from abroad. A dollar would probably cost less than 50 box here but still we have hungry, overworked, and underpaid citizens left behind in this beautiful country.

I am incredibly going crazy with my words that I just left it this blog. I think I am getting out of tune if I elaborate some more of my candid statements. Anyways, just like what I said in the past chapters, I am not resigning now but rather just thinking about it. It is just, I am becoming to be very financially driven this week when my Dad was hospitalized.