HARIBOL SURALISTA

HARIBOL SURALISTA
Pag-omawon an Kagurangnan, an pursang minabusol kan sakong pluma. Haribol.

Translation of HERAK, with Introduction

Today I got another poem from my FB memory. A poem from six years ago. It's about thankfulness but the title is Mercy. My friend Richard told me a few days ago that grace (also his daughter's name) is such a wonderful word because it describes something that is not from this world. Grace from God, or the Divine, as he said it. As i read this poem again, i thought about grace and mercy and thankfulness--they are all interconnected. they describe something that is beyond this realm. like love, when we feel grace, or mercy, or thankfulness, we are as if transformed--reverted back would be more precise-- to our original form. and we get a taste, even for a brief moment, of happiness. for the longest time, i always thought that happiness is like that--a brief gulp of clarity, awe, and feeling of utter security--that nothing matters more. but then it's gone in a while and you're back staring at the grey pavement, waiting for something great to happen.
when i learned from my teacher that everyone of us, are eternally happy, i can't understand it. the idea was so foreign to me that i thought it was just a philosophical thing. when i started chanting the Holy Names, or mantras in japa yoga and kirtan yoga, gradually, this truth became apparent. we, the spirit souls are naturally blissful. but when we came into contact with matter, we were covered up by the modes of material nature, goodness, passion and ignorance. from these, different temperaments rose and drove us to different places and made our consciousness more and more entangled in the world of matter, and in turn made it harder and harder for us to see who we really are. my teacher compared it to a diamond covered with mud. our natural brilliance cannot get through the muck. to cleanse us of this dirt we need a purifier like water. something that is opposite the dirt. in this case something that is the opposite of matter. as dirt cannot nullify dirt, matter cannot be cleansed by matter. we need a cleaning agent that is transcendental to matter.
the transcendental sound vibration of the Holy Names of God are the ultimate purifier of the soul. by chanting the Holy Names our hearts are gradually cleansed of all the dust that we have accumulated from lifetimes upon lifetimes. once this covering in our hearts are removed then we can see and understand more clearly the reality of this world we are presently in. we can also clearly understand our real identity, why we are here, and what is the goal of this life.
My gratitude to my teacher is without measure. He woke me up from a false dream of life, and shown me what it really is. like what Morpheus did to Neo in the Matrix. He opened my darkened eyes and filled my heart with transcendental knowledge. He has given me unconditional mercy, a divine grace. All glories to you Gurudev.
Here's the English translation of the poem:
MERCY
Each morning
Is a mercy from God.
Flowers don’t bloom
For you or for themselves
But simply because.
For all these
May as well cease
Easy as because.
What for then is understanding
Why every breath continues without cause?
To fear the coming
Of the end is of no value
For even now
That destination may
Already be in front of you.
Life can only continue
With a heart free of burden
For God, out of mercy,
Took from you a learning
You don’t need to know.
HERAK
An kada kinaagahan
sarong herak kan Kagurangnan.
Dai nagsusupang an mga burak
para saimo no sa saindang sadiri
kundi malâ,
ta an gabos na ini
kaya man kuta mapundo
dawa sa saro man na malâ.
Kaya para sain pa an pagsabot kun nata
an kada hangos dagos minakusa?
Daing kamugtakan an matakot
kan pag-abot kan hudyan
ta baad ngani ngonian
nasa hampang mo naan kasagkodan na iyan.
Minadanay ka sana
na daing gabat an daghan
ta hinali saimo kan Kagurangnan
sa herak, su pagkaaram
na dai mo man kaipuhan.
Nobyembre 24, 2010. Pawa.
Haribol.

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Karangahan: Pagranga sa Panurat Bikolnon. Kagibo: Jimple Borlagdan. Pinduton an ritrato para makaduman sa Karangahan

On Borlagdan's Poetry


A Rush of Metaphors, Tremor of Cadences, and Sad Subversions
By Tito Genova Valiente
titovaliente@yahoo.com

The first time I read the poems of Jesus Jaime Borlagdan, Jimple to those who know him, I felt immediately the seething movement of the words. There was a rush of metaphors in his works. I immediately liked the feeling that the rhythm caused in one’s reading for poetry, in my book, should always be read aloud. I was hearing the voice. It was a voice that happened to sound from afar and it was struggling to link up with a present that would not easily appear.

It was heartbreaking to feel the form. I felt the lines constricting. I saw the phrases dangling to tease, breaking the code of straight talk and inverting them to seduce the mind to think beyond the words. Somewhere, the poems were reverting back to direct sentences, weakening the art of poetry with its universe of ellipses and nuances, but then as suddenly as the words lightened up, the poems then dipped back into a silent retreat, into a cave, to lick its own wounds from the confrontation that it dared to initiate.

For this column, I decide to share parts of the longer paper I am writing about this poet.

In Karangahan, the poet begins with: Bulebard, ikang muymuyon na salog/ki gatas buda patenteng nakahungko,/ako ngonian kahurona. Borlagdan translates this into:Boulevard, you forlorn river/ of milk and downcast lights/ speak to me now. Savor the translation, for in Bikol that which is a dialog has become an entreaty.)

The poet is always talking to someone but in An istorya ninda, an osipon ta, he talks about a the fruits of some narrative: Ta sa dara nindang korona kita an hadi/ sa krus, kita su may nakatadok na espada./Naitaram na ninda an saindang istorya./Punan ta na man su satong osipon./This I translate as: For in the crown they bear we are the King/ on the cross, with the embedded sword./ Marvel at this construction, as the poet cuts at the word “hadi” and begins the next line with “krus” and the “espada.” Marvel, too, at how he looks at conversion and faith, a process that made us special but also wounded us with ourselves stuck with the sword.

Finally, the poet says those lines of the true believer: They have already spoken their story, now let us begin with our tale. The poet does not have a translation but will the istorya in this line be “history” and osipon be “myth.” Shall these last four lines in the first stanza be both a subversion of our faith embedded in a foreign culture or a celebration of what we are not, and what we have not become?
Puni na an paghidaw. Puni na an pagluwas/hali sa kwartong pano ki luha, puni na/an paghiling sa luwas kan bintana./Puni na an paghidaw para sa binayaan./Puni na an pagsulit sa daluging tinimakan./Puni na an paghidaw sa mga sinugbang utoban. Terrifying lines as the poet calls us to begin the remembering and also begin the moving out from the room full of tears. In the poet’s mind, the lacrimarum vale or valley of tears had become an intimate area for instigating his own release.

The rhythm is there as in a prayer. But it is no prayer. There is the repetition but it is not a plea. There is the self but it is one that has turned away from itself into something else. That self is one that shall face the recollection of the faith that has been burned.

And yet the poet, resolute when he wants to, loves to sing and hint of fear and anxiety. Even when he is merely observing children playing in the rains, he summons images of terrible beauty. The skies become diklom na pinandon na “may luho” (with hole). From this hole, comes the sarong pisi ki sildang/ tisuhon na buminulos. The poet stays with this metaphor with such intensity that the silken thread coming from the hole justifiably becomes luhang garo hipidon na busay/paluwas sa mata/kan dagom. Dark wit and a penchant for the horrifying are tandem graces in these lines.

This is the poet who can, without self-consciousness, tell us of the …haya/kan mga ayam na namimibi/nakakapabuskad ki barahibo/nakakaulakit ki lungsi. He whispers of “halas na rimuranon, malamti/sa hapiyap kan mga bituon.”
This is a startling universe, where dogs pray (and bay), and where fears bloom and paleness afflicts and infects, and serpents are caressed by the stars.