Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Children


Children
need to see the Christ pained
on his death,

they need to see
pixilated, blurred scars on TV
turning into flesh cut out by lashes,

they need no guidance from adults,
they need to be left interpreting
a man whispering his moans
to his unseen father,

they need
to smell the blood dried on his nose
on his cheeks & eyelashes,

they need to hear the breath
last on his lungs as a spear soaked
in wine is struck on his rib,

they
need to look closely on the sun
interspersed on the crucifix
thus making out a silhouette
of a man - healer & teacher as
yearned by weeping bit players
- saving a world of dragged backs
equated with salvific yokes,

they
need to remind one and themselves
all they have seen on screen
as they throw pebbles on chalk lines
etched on sand, indeciphering yet,
impetuously loving yet.

Poem by: Aloy Polintan
Photo by: Joemill Veloso Flordelis

Image: Sunken Cemetery, Camiguin Island, Philippines

Friday, April 14, 2017

New Baptism



During the sun's scorching gaze
Is baptism renewed most fit
When, hands clasped on each other
(a gesture of obligatory devotion)
I will soak my heels up my nape
Drops almost touching my earlobes
Bubbles will form, burst, regenerate
Ripples rival among themselves
Placid waves caress my ligaments
As the high priest rinses the spirit
As I close my eyes for orange panorama
The gentle rush of water subsides
A stagnant pool quiets the crowd
And now the baptizer is out of sight
Only cobblestones cradle me in their arms
In the void of direction, of ritual

Poetry by: Aloy Polintan
Photo by: Joemill Veloso Flordelis

Image: Camiguin Island, Philippines

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Bleeding Sunset in Mactan Island


The dull horizon of a spotless canvas – a garden for the pensive mind staring out at nothingness – exploded into a spectrum of raging fire, quite unexpectedly a visual treat at sundown, one fine Christmas day with family, merry and loud and full, in Cordova. It is a small town on an island ruled by the valiant Lapu-Lapu and where Ferdinand Magellan – the Portuguese explorer that set sail from Seville, Spain in an attempt to circumnavigate the globe – met his untimely death.

The sky that day bled a hopeful message that everything else was taken care of, that the blessing wasn't too far not to see.


Images: Lantaw Floating Native Restaurant, Cordova, Mactan Island, Cebu, Philippines

Friday, April 22, 2016

Bohol: A Thousand Chocolate Hills, Green Landscapes, Tarsiers, and Ati People


Images:
Chocolate Hills Complex, Carmen
Chocolate Hills -- Sagbayan Peak, Sagbayan
Tarsiers -- Sagbayan Peak, Sagbayan
Bilar Man-made Forest, Bilar
Loboc River, Loboc
Ati Tribe Riverside Community -- Loboc River, Loboc

Friday, October 30, 2015

The Fisherfolk of Bantayan Island, Cebu


Sunrise commits itself to a cyclical responsibility for the world to see. 

Every early morning, its soft lights knife through thatched-roof homes of slumbering heads, gagged mouths, and motionless bodies, leaving no dust in a spectrum unmasked. Sunrise is the culmination of the death of night and the first sign of the birth of day, where two long-rivaling ends meet. It is a predictable phenomenon, which could mean many things to a billion different people. It could mean just another monotonous day for the uninspired, another dreaded day for the burned-out rat, another sunny day for the optimist. Or another sweat-it-all-out day for the hard worker who has mouths to feed.

In Santa Fe, one of only three municipalities on Bantayan Island, sunrise means another day to possess and thank the gifts of water. Unsurprisingly, as being islander locals, a lot of whom are fishermen. As early as five in the pastel-colored morning, fishermen end their fishing in deep waters. In a fascinating manner, they return and help each other by carrying ashore a banca (outrigger) in cadence, which goes to show the spirit of bayanihan (cooperation) still truly lives on. The toiling fisherfolk bring their past-midnight haul of bolinao (anchovies) to their anxious wives and drowsy children, where each member correspondingly untangles the fish out from the fishing net and puts them in a pail or bucket.

Apart from finding their fresh catch straight in wet markets, they also sell them as buwad (dried fish) prepared by themselves.

It is not uncommon to see fishing as a family affair on the resource-rich island.