Whoever are the people behind the Berso Sa Metro campaign each deserve a –
what do you call those leafy things they put on the heads of poets in ancient times? –
Those leafy things, they should be placed as crowns on the heads of those noble people who thought up the Berso Sa Metro campaign.
Last Sunday, as I was on my way to meet a friend, and since the LRT-MRT route has always been the quickest way to get around, I had another treat of these little masterpieces.
I tried my best to memorize one during the ride but my phone kept ringing and had to be answered.
All I could remember about those four lines that kept me from looking down and kept me looking up instead was that it was one of those double-purpose pieces which you could read as a romantic poem or as a love poem to God.
It didn’t only keep me looking up, it made me look through the window, and at cloud formations. For one brief moment, I felt completely like dear ol’ Amelie again, seeing teddy bears and rabbits in the sky while clicking away at her instamatic.
God, I have to find those four lines somewhere here in the echo chamber… Let me try…
I really can’t find it. But it was really good.
That’s it, next time, I’m taking down notes.
* * *
I do remember one that’s posted somewhere in Greenbelt. It goes, “namumukadkad ng umaga ang pinakamadilim na gabi”.
Did I get that right? Jesus. I should be sharp in retaining things like these.
Ah, wait, one time me and another friend were walking around Greenbelt, she actually made me take down notes on the poems scattered all around the mall. Well, actually, since I was too slow, she borrowed my notebook from me and copied the poems herself.
Let me get that notebook. It’s somewhere here in my nomad bag…
Aw, shit, it’s in the other nomad bag.
Wait, maybe the echo chamber has it somewhere here… Googling…
They were Jimmmy Abad poems, as far as I can remember…
I can’t find it either.
I’m bringing that notebook tomorrow.
* * *
I guess Anne Sexton really got it right when she said that music remembers better. I do not ever have a problem remembering songs and recalling them.
Last week, on my way to work, I happened to ride a pink bus where a song was playing on the radio: “where the moon disappears forever, and the sun shines electric blue”.
I sang it as soon as I sat here on my desk, and one of the kids I work with got it instantly.
See, that kid wasn’t probably even born yet when the song came out. But she knows.
I remember one of my teachers say one time that in Russia, people really took poetry to heart that audiences actually would recite along during public poetry presentations. Yeah, they had those, like concerts. And people knew poems like they knew songs.
We can get there. Well, actually, we’ve been there – I remember my grandmother telling me how balagtasan was such a big thing during her youth, and how those who competed were their stars. It was their age’s rap.
We can get back there again. I really believe that. Poetry and music are kin, afterall, and our nation has always had music in its blood.
I love my train rides. And Greenbelt. And all their poems, reaching out to me.
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