Dad, his son, could himself recite whole poems from memory. He broke into poem as others broke into song; he could not carry a tune himself, and spared songs by reciting them, as though they were poems, which in a way they were.
Under the guidance of a Flemish nun in high school, my education in poetry expanded, and my appreciation of it deepened. Mother Laurentina’s poetic fervor itself was consequential; as I watched and listened to her, there performing at her full height of five-eight, I felt transported from classroom to some majestic realm. She always said poetry was meant to please the highest senses.
Treat
Just as song is meant to be sung, poetry is meant to be recited, and best done so, I think, by the poet himself or the closest among his kindred spirits—another poet. And such was exactly the treat we got on the night of De la Salle’s parangal for its own poet professor, the National Artist Cirilo Bautista.
I had suffered a lapse in my appreciation of the literary form after Uncle Anding, a National Artist in Literature himself, had knocked it, no doubt with tongue in cheek. Once, during one of those seasons of street protests, right in the middle of a speaker’s impassioned oration in some vague verse, he whispered to me, “Know the quickest way to disperse a crowd?”
Although knowing him enough to be certain I’d been set up, I played along all the same as his straight partner and waited for his punch line, which came with perfect timing from the corner of his moustached lips, “The quickest and surest way to disperse a crowd? Poetry.”
Although funny for all its irreverence, the joke somehow got in the way of my poetry appreciation.
New poems
As happens, it was poetry precisely, and specifically Cirilo’s—his newest volume of poems, “Things Happen,” launched that same night—that brought us friends and fellows of his together. And a most delightful night it turned out to be! To hear Gemino Abad recite one of Cirilo’s poems from memory, and other poet friends read their own choices from the collection was a treat, indeed.
Enjoyable as well was the conversation on stage between Cirilo and the editor and art critic Lito Zulueta, who brought out the poet’s sense of humor, his ability to take life deeply but lightly, and naturally poetically. “You can make a fool of yourself in many ways… and there are good ways.”
Beaming with neither pride nor rancor, he declared, “I was poor then and I’m still poor now.” Growing up, he said, he thought poverty “a natural condition.” Accustomed to poverty, thus unscathed by it, he has reaped his own satisfactions from life. But of course: He has been conferred his nation’s highest honor—National Artist for Literature.
Trivia
I was grateful for touches of endearing trivia. He wrote poetry in script on slips of paper, and could produce one or two poems a day. A passion for reading (“anything and everything”) fulfilled in the public libraries must have done it for him, he said. He has tried his hand in other literary forms, in both English and Tagalog, but feels he expresses himself best in poetry.
I’ve become enamored of some of his phrases that seem to stand out for me. I love the subtlety and the power evoked by the images and feelings in his verse. I particularly delight in his knowing just when to stop, and not say more because his story is told. There’s an energy, albeit a gentle one, that runs through his poetry, which is never languid; indeed, in his poetry, “Things Happen.”
He’s not been very healthy for some time; a progressively debilitating and painful disease has put him in a wheelchair. Countless times, his wife Rosemary, who happens to have been a classmate of mine in Mother Laurentina’s high school, had had to beg off from attending our many socials, not wanting to leave Cirilo’s side. All his books are dedicated to her.
Common ground
Rose and I have common exciting ground—I’m myself married to a writer and editor—and find ourselves talking in that context the rare times we are reunited. We both realize that, as much as our husbands need to be left alone in their work, they like having us around.
We also share the pride of their books being dedicated to us. My Vergel is a prose person himself (“prosaic,” he would say with prideful modesty), but I thought he came close to being one in the dedication he wrote on his first gift to me, a collection of poems by our favorite Edna St. Vincent Millay.
That night, with his Rose, as always, by his side, Cirilo looked on top of the world, showing none of the scars of life that nonpoets might easily betray. Rose herself couldn’t seem to stop smiling, and neither could I, just happy for the two of them.