Bed and Breakfast by the Bay

*originally published in www.mindanews.com

 

CAGAYAN DE ORO (MindaNews/30 May) — Despite seeing the banner announcing the annual Masonic national convention that greeted us as our bus entered Cagayan de Oro City at nightfall, we took our chances, knocked on inns, hotels, and pensionne houses that closed their doors to us, receptionists shaking their heads saying “no vacancy.” Even along Nazareth Street we had no luck. Tonight, Cagayan de Oro City’s lodging houses, inns, and hotels were unbelievably fully booked, all of them were filled with Masons.

Like arriving in Bethlehem, surely there must be some empty stable somewhere that my friend Clee and I were welcome to stay for the night. After a backbreaking almost seven-hour bus ride from Davao City, which took longer than usual because of road renovations, we needed to relax in order to prepare for our trip to Dumaguete the next day. Just one night was all we asked.

We discussed who the Masons are as we rode away in a taxi from yet another inn that said NO, laughing at the incongruity that a pilgrimage of a thousand fraternity members to Cagayan de Oro can actually crowd its lodging establishments. The city is really small, we thought. Or perhaps there were just so many of them Masons around. We finally stopped in front of YMCA Hostel. This must be the stable we were waiting for. “Surely there aren’t any Masons here.” We joked.

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there is no measurement for longing

*posting this here because it’s almost that time of year when we remember him*

(first draft)

 

if dreams were meant to be
as we dreamt them to be
the sun would have set long before
you arrived in that pier—
saffron clouds staring back at you
the orange light hidden somewhere
down the indigo line and
would have stared harder
for that light you’ve been chasing after for so long

perhaps the gods were less kinder
that day in jolo, then again perhaps
it was not as we imagined it should be

i do not grieve for the empty spaces
you left, or for the images you took
as you played with light and mirrors mirroring
our fleeting lives like leaves turning
brown every moment your ashes turn to dust

i cry for the moments we seized
and the days and nights we could have owned

if i could only see you there
staring at the sunset that afternoon
the world would have ended just there–
between knowing and forgetting
the earth beneath us would gape
swallowing us into ourselves

there is really no measurement for longing

only the management of grief:
a photograph of you smiling
your blue shirt, your laughter echoing in between
my silences, your eyes seeing what isn’t seen
i do not find any answers from the sun
or the moon, perhaps i’ll never will

(for Gene Boyd Lumawag, Dec.14, 1977-Nov.12, 2004)

note: I wrote this after I spent one afternoon with Boyd’s mother. She would suddenly cry in between converstations, if she sees some of her son’s belongings; like a pair of orange hiking shoes or a shirt. Observing her actions made me realized that memory and loving are really about the little things that remind of us of ourselves when we are with the ones we love. This poem was inspired by that experience with her.