TO BEGIN WITH
Today marks the 12th anniversary of my poetry book "The Big Blue and Me". I wrote it during an Aboitiz Foundation gathering in Cebu. It was a book that's pretty close to my heart, and I just want to share with you some excerpts.
Friend, read on.
Writer's Note: This next passage is from my old Multiply blog back in January 2009. For your reading pleasure. =)
I have thought it true in the saying that “no man is an island” and yet I do believe that for a while there I have been just that – an island to myself. Separated, adrift – though not set apart, dreaming that a dozen dolphins will come singing as they form a bridge from this place to the mainland (the mainland would be something peaceful and quiet).
Writer's Note: This next passage is from my old Multiply blog back in January 2009. For your reading pleasure. =)
I have thought it true in the saying that “no man is an island” and yet I do believe that for a while there I have been just that – an island to myself. Separated, adrift – though not set apart, dreaming that a dozen dolphins will come singing as they form a bridge from this place to the mainland (the mainland would be something peaceful and quiet).
I am not a willing sailor, leaving land too long a time, I could not live the life of some far-off fisherman, hip-high in water every morning, dragging in the nets at night. But the ocean has always had a pull for me.
Something draws and draws, I’ve no doubt of that, something from the sea, whichever one I’m near. And when I stray too far from beachland I’m called back. What calls or carries me till I’m within the range of water once again is a mystery. I do know that the calm times, the quiet ones, not necessarily the best – have been lived out near the ocean.
THE BIG BLUE AND ME
Today I’ve selected to share the opening poem and the introduction to my latest and 9th poetry book, The Big Blue and Me. Hope you all have a fine weekend, stay healthy, and have lots of love and laughter. And of course… Sleep warm.
DID YOU KNOW
Something draws and draws, I’ve no doubt of that, something from the sea, whichever one I’m near. And when I stray too far from beachland I’m called back. What calls or carries me till I’m within the range of water once again is a mystery. I do know that the calm times, the quiet ones, not necessarily the best – have been lived out near the ocean.
THE BIG BLUE AND ME
Today I’ve selected to share the opening poem and the introduction to my latest and 9th poetry book, The Big Blue and Me. Hope you all have a fine weekend, stay healthy, and have lots of love and laughter. And of course… Sleep warm.
DID YOU KNOW
by Emon
One ocean for me
is not like any other
except to say
that each has given love
when I need it,
joy when there was none
forthcoming
and peace if I stayed long enough
to wait for it or seek it out.
Thank you, Holy Spirit.
(January 2009)
INTRODUCTION TO “THE BIG BLUE AND ME”
I’ve wanted to write an “Ocean” poetry book for a long time. It seems like always. I remember trying several years ago and then abandoning it when something else came up. It’s as if I couldn’t find the right muse, the most demanding muse, to write “Ocean” poems. Four stormy days in Cebu changed all that.
The words here are the ones I lived with for the past several weeks, and they remain to me important. This book, in a way, chronicles my recent feelings about life and living. I don’t believe a man can write about the ocean and not include himself. Much of me is here and I have used the ocean as a platform to speak about the times and the seasons and people’s relationships with one another. Most of all, I’ve used the ocean to write about loving. I’ve also included here some old poems that I think had an “Ocean” theme.
Psychologists equate man’s love for the ocean with mother-love. No wonder so many sun-tanned young men and women look at us from magazines and television, selling beer and cigarettes from docks and sailboats!
I have made love and thought myself a lover by the ocean. Caught cold from it. Nearly drowned in it once or twice and walked alone by it more often than I care to remember. I’ve known the oceans off Olongapo and Subic Bay, Laguna and Batangas, Pangasinan and Manila, Cebu and Davao, and I’ve loved them all. How much fun it was to write about the ocean! How much fun it will be to write about it again. Every day I thank God for the chance.
It is marvelous to know that I am not too young anymore (I’m turning 30 this year) and not very old either. And that I’ll be writing poems about the ocean for a long, long time to come. This should be the first of many, I hope and believe. I cross the streets more carefully now.
Raymund's Random Thoughts
Love words roll off from the tongue like ill advice. Be careful.
Like the tide, life comes and goes in cycle after cycle. I’ve been dead and resurrected many times. Who’s to say it cannot happen yet again?
All else pales before nature.
Poem of the Week
A LESSON FROM THE SEA
One ocean for me
is not like any other
except to say
that each has given love
when I need it,
joy when there was none
forthcoming
and peace if I stayed long enough
to wait for it or seek it out.
Thank you, Holy Spirit.
(January 2009)
INTRODUCTION TO “THE BIG BLUE AND ME”
I’ve wanted to write an “Ocean” poetry book for a long time. It seems like always. I remember trying several years ago and then abandoning it when something else came up. It’s as if I couldn’t find the right muse, the most demanding muse, to write “Ocean” poems. Four stormy days in Cebu changed all that.
The words here are the ones I lived with for the past several weeks, and they remain to me important. This book, in a way, chronicles my recent feelings about life and living. I don’t believe a man can write about the ocean and not include himself. Much of me is here and I have used the ocean as a platform to speak about the times and the seasons and people’s relationships with one another. Most of all, I’ve used the ocean to write about loving. I’ve also included here some old poems that I think had an “Ocean” theme.
Psychologists equate man’s love for the ocean with mother-love. No wonder so many sun-tanned young men and women look at us from magazines and television, selling beer and cigarettes from docks and sailboats!
I have made love and thought myself a lover by the ocean. Caught cold from it. Nearly drowned in it once or twice and walked alone by it more often than I care to remember. I’ve known the oceans off Olongapo and Subic Bay, Laguna and Batangas, Pangasinan and Manila, Cebu and Davao, and I’ve loved them all. How much fun it was to write about the ocean! How much fun it will be to write about it again. Every day I thank God for the chance.
It is marvelous to know that I am not too young anymore (I’m turning 30 this year) and not very old either. And that I’ll be writing poems about the ocean for a long, long time to come. This should be the first of many, I hope and believe. I cross the streets more carefully now.
Raymund Tamayo, 2009
Raymund's Random Thoughts
Love words roll off from the tongue like ill advice. Be careful.
Like the tide, life comes and goes in cycle after cycle. I’ve been dead and resurrected many times. Who’s to say it cannot happen yet again?
All else pales before nature.
Poem of the Week
A LESSON FROM THE SEA
by Emon
In the half-light
I saw swimmers
coming from the darkness
carrying a boy’s body low,
as though his weight
was bending all of them
into the same submission.
As though the boy
was pulling them down
the way the sea had pulled him
to herself.
He was, of course,
just one more lover
of the big blue water.
A clumsy boy who swam
a little farther out
each day
hoping to win
the ocean’s affection.
I wonder what he said
as he went down
the final time,
as he gasped his
final breath,
here I am or let me go?
I feel like the sea eats up
the men who love her the most,
the way a queen ant
must finally one day
kill the soldiers
who fought for her in battles
and fought with her in bedrooms.
If I must, I’d do the same,
I am not afraid.
I’d go down gladly in a whirlpool
just to see her again.
For the sea
it wasn’t murder,
but poor repayment
for a man whose only crime
was to love the big blue water,
that in a single swallow
broke and took him.
The ocean has a lesson
echoed for all of us.
Push forward, she keeps saying
till your life is bare upon the shore
until you’re naked to yourself.
But don’t forget
loving me doesn’t mean
you have to reach my deepest depths.
You can also love me
from afar.
To wade the water is to learn.
(January 2009)
- from “The Big Blue and Me”, 2009
AND FINALLY
Every day passing seems like quicker than the ones running before. Thank God for creating peace and quiet. And the sea...
In the half-light
I saw swimmers
coming from the darkness
carrying a boy’s body low,
as though his weight
was bending all of them
into the same submission.
As though the boy
was pulling them down
the way the sea had pulled him
to herself.
He was, of course,
just one more lover
of the big blue water.
A clumsy boy who swam
a little farther out
each day
hoping to win
the ocean’s affection.
I wonder what he said
as he went down
the final time,
as he gasped his
final breath,
here I am or let me go?
I feel like the sea eats up
the men who love her the most,
the way a queen ant
must finally one day
kill the soldiers
who fought for her in battles
and fought with her in bedrooms.
If I must, I’d do the same,
I am not afraid.
I’d go down gladly in a whirlpool
just to see her again.
For the sea
it wasn’t murder,
but poor repayment
for a man whose only crime
was to love the big blue water,
that in a single swallow
broke and took him.
The ocean has a lesson
echoed for all of us.
Push forward, she keeps saying
till your life is bare upon the shore
until you’re naked to yourself.
But don’t forget
loving me doesn’t mean
you have to reach my deepest depths.
You can also love me
from afar.
To wade the water is to learn.
(January 2009)
- from “The Big Blue and Me”, 2009
AND FINALLY
Every day passing seems like quicker than the ones running before. Thank God for creating peace and quiet. And the sea...
Thanks for stopping by - see you when I see you.
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