O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Today my body aches with too much weeping. My soul aches.

After having just copied in the Whitman quote above into my blog draft, I see a Twitter scroll by from Noemi Dado: “Some things are beyond my control I want to live a good life.” Damn. That’s pretty much what Whitman was saying - but in less than 128 characters.

This dam burst, just a little, earlier today as I was reading Noemi, actually. About her son that will always stay six years old, while knowing full well that I’ve been sitting here in Quezon City this week while my littlest one celebrated his fourth birthday with the rest of the family in Bukidnon and fearing much much less the fact that I’ll burn in hell for this than the void that might arise in his life as a result. It’s not my loss, but his that torments me.

But this has been building up over weeks and months and years; a lifetime. Building up with the deaths in Sulu, with the displacements in Shariff Aguak, in Pikit, with the death and destruction of lives in Iraq - and oh baby with Vietnam. I’m horrified at what has become of the leaders of my country; and of this country (as if any of us “have” a country - we don’t, of course).

Friday night I’m sitting in a tiny cafe just off Matalino Street in Diliman. I adore Diliman. It feeds my soul. Something just feels right to me about being in this melieu, this bastion of the Philippines higher public education; this fecund area nurturing not just contemplations but strategies and actions for social justice. I’m sitting at a table sharing a bottle of wine with a gentlemen who was once on the Board of Akbayan. A former labor organizer, kicked out of the Communist Party many years ago for “philosophical differences” he became an economist (instead of a communist) and tirelessly continues to examine current social and policy issues through the lens of a rigorous scientific method. Me? I speak of discouragement. But my friend, like Pete “Charlie Hustle” Rose, keeps getting back in the batter’s box, looking to beat out a single, stretch a hit into a double, and even contemplates going for the fence every now and then. He keeps trying to make things better here in the Philippines. “You just do what you can,” he says. Hmmm … what was it Whitman said? Contribute a verse?

So we, both in our fifties, are in the cafe discussing energy issues. And in walks this young girl who introduces herself to my friend, saying she recognized who he was and she has some questions on energy. She’s working for Akbayan. She’s focused and earnest. I envy her. I feel as if I have not yet made a difference in the things I really care about. She is already on base. Maybe it’s only first base; but she’s out on the field. I wonder, as I tried to keep up with the mostly Tagalog conversation, how she would end up at my age. What will she have accomplished. And will it have all been a missed opportunity. (Heh. Does your mind ever wander so far off base during a conversation? I like to think of it as wisdom; but it’s probably senility).

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

- T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

After I recovered from reading Noemi this moring, I stumble upon a blog entry by Marichu Lambino (who by the way is an attorney and Professor of Journalism at U.P. Diliman) and I’m struck by the sketch of Lorena Barros, who wrote poetry and “was killed in battle in the mountains of Mauban, Quezon.” So I’m researching Lorena Barros and the story eats deeper and deeper into my soul till I’m again weeping, this time for the young feminists swept away in the aftermath of the First Quarter Storm.

Today my body aches with too much weeping. My soul aches.

O ME! O life!… of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.