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Crossing Over
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*by Fatima Ray*
At eighteen waiting for the light to turn green at the intersection in the
big city thirty miles from home. Observing all the people waiti...
1 year ago
TopBlogs.com.ph
As the night falls like a glossy drape of black
crepuscular muses forgather for a bath of neon
for like the evening their lives are fleeting.
Festive flapping, summoned by the streetlights;
minute dusts of silver fall like quiesced rain,
showcasing unknowingly such soundless marvel.
At the crest of their being beauty is spotlighted
before the day breaks its first light,
and their once sublime flight morphs into a dream.
Photography by Kokorokoko of the Philippines. Please click here to view the owner’s Flickr page. Thanks!
Hello! I'm back!
I'm so sorry for being passive for a few days. I've been hooked with developing a screenplay, and I thought I could get out of it as easily as I've started it, but it's seems more addictive that I thought it is. I've found myself engrossed with the rewriting, re-plotting, editing and polishing. I just hope that later on my pitching will somehow kindles hope and even pays off. Do you guys happen to know a place or a site or a person who takes movie scripts and actually review them? I've heard about Writers' Guild of America, and that they offer protection to amateur writers and veterans alike by registering their works there. And I'm going to register mine. If you happen to know a place where I could "toss" it, please let me know. I would truly appreciate it.
I know this is a wild idea coming out of me, but well, there's no harm in trying.
And btw, the poem I've posted below is actually a depiction of the story I am writing about. Well, it's more of like, the poetic expression of the story, summarizing the main issue into a log line. I can't stay long here for now, I got
limited internet access (grrr!).
Anyways, good day to you all!
Hugs!
I look for a place
Where the world spells life differently
But find a crossroad instead.
Shall I take the highway
Or shall I follow the biway?
Events are the outcome of one's choices
These roads before me
that'll take me there are empty
The clearing of whichever road befalls
only after my every step.
The distance is vaguer than mist
But the fog lifts up and clears
After it touches my breath ---
Only by then that the distance is seen
The distance's defined.
Blank routes yield no options
But choices for actions pave a route
And take me to where my heart envisions.
For there's no predestined me,
or a prearranged journey.
And so I don't choose ---
I make a road
for
me.
NOTE: REGARDING THE PHOTOGRAPH USED FOR THIS POST, I WOULD LIKE TO EXTEND MY APOLOGY TO THE RESPECTIVE OWNER OF THE SAID ARTWORK FOR NOT DISPLAYING A BACKLINK TO HIS OR HER SITE. I'VE FOUND THIS IMAGE IN MY FILES, AND COULDN'T REMEMBER THE URL WHERE IT COME FROM. THIS IMAGE REALLY CONNECTS WITH MY POEM, AND I CAN'T FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO REPLACE IT. IF YOU HAPPEN TO VISIT MY SITE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW OF YOUR WEBSITE OR IF I HAVE TO REMOVE IT. THANKS.
In domestic violence and aggression, or in a family whose leaders are in the verge of divorce battles, it is most often that the children are the ones who are forbidden to get involved but are the ones left most shattered and devastated. Such destructive issues have become rampant nowadays that they come to slowly alter the ways of the world into something of its own, at least in the world of our children. We might ask, whatever happen if a home’s lamp and pillar come crushing down? The answer is everywhere now. With open eyes and awake soul, we can see them so easily.
From them he learns to voice his outcry
at such young age ---
he’s supposed to be playing!
Where forces of thralldom
make him find ways to stand alone;
Cupping hands over his ears,
his way of list’ning to his own songs;
Casting his eyes to familial exiguity
to such fragile relationship,
to the wails of many a depravity;
Though dark he still sees in them a buoy
where the glint sparks unwavering hope
of salvation, of his salvation.
Domestic tumult a cataract to his eyes
and the uprising of wounded soul,
the omen of phantom barricades ---
all blinding his youthful conviction
instilling fear, guilt and rebellion.
Drastic hands grasping tight the metal rails
for the hurting is pushing him to the edge,
the kindled future’s slipping down the ridge.
How soulless it is if they’d let him see them
walk away leaving him, forsaking him!
There must be a way to level the gorge
or he’ll be skidding fast and falling ---
from parental purlieu to bottomless perdition.
From his eyes dreams are escaping
his body shivers, not capable of losing;
At the threshold of their home
where the playground lies,
a crossfire is trapping him, crushing him.
Stand but not just wait, he tells himself
while all the others await
where the balance will go tilt,
Here he is tipping his head high
before this hostile, charred fair ---
Patch the shards, hush the screaming!
Curb my erosion, redress your err!
--- But nobody’s list’ning.
If he could just be much older,
perhaps they’d hear him.
Does he really has to first grow old?
Photograph from allcare.net. Please CLICK HERE to go there.
This poem was written after spending time alone contemplating on what could happen to me now that my chance of going and working back abroad is dim. It is my ultimate passion and dream ever since I was a child to go to faraway places, discover felicity and inner tranquility that I could otherwise not find close at home.
There is something in it that pacifies my spirituality and provides me inner smiles, and it is therefore my goal when I set my foot into a journey towards it. I've been to the first pace, and It felt so wonderful to be at the threshold of your dream. Just one more step and I'll be fully walking toward where the untrodden path is leading.
But then powerful forces pulled everything away from its place, forces beyond my power to control and change. And now I have to wait for it to subside, while finding ways to collect everything back into place for me to keep moving.
The distant light is still there, waiting. And so I have to keep walking...
Tramp,
land your feet
on the ground;
Thump,
listen to the voice
of its sound;
March,
even if it means
drifting from the world
for a while;
Stride,
the distant light
is getting big.
Open up,
let your dreams
pour from the creek;
Look up,
see the stars shining down;
Hop,
lift yourself
from the gouge;
Go forward,
and keep looking
straight ahead;
Don’t turn back,
but remember the road behind.
Let yourself flow
to something you believe in
Teach your heart to listen to
the zephyr of your dreams.
Photograph by Cyril Breton. Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's Flickr page.
I’ve wanted to pen a poem about my mother and post it on Mother’s Day to celebrate her love and doting on us, her offspring. But due to what happened, sadly I’ve set aside the idea for a while, and wait for my health to cope up. But setting it aside doesn’t mean I’m taking it for granted, my appreciation and gratitude for my mother. I’ve greeted my mother on Mother’s Day, and I saw her smile the purest smile ever. But I know words are never enough to outweigh such tremendous, fathomless love. But it is my relief that somehow there’s a way to let my mother know how much she’s loved by us her children.
Although the following poem evolved from a specific scene, yet it was written from an angle wherein I depict the ceaseless affection and care of a mother.
Hoping that it’s not yet too late, I’m posting this poem now to celebrate the special day of all mothers from all over the world. To you all, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! 
My Watcher
Curled up in early morn
on a narrow upholstery
Soundless breath,
Sleeping still;
A local paper surging
atop the chest.
Streaks of furrow
on that calm visage,
Such gallant repository
of all those years.
I look at them wrinkles
abated, not gone, for now
Just last night they show
Sheer worries,
which then vanished not furtively.
I look at her sleeping
from last night’s weariness,
Admiring wordlessly
such maternal love,
such doting on me.
I turn down the audio,
turn my face away from HBO;
And that oblique firing of rain,
quiesced by my ears.
From my roller bed
in this aesculapian room
I glance at her, my watcher.
For all those times
I didn’t stand up for her
Still here she is,
looking after me.
Photograph by Magpie-Moon . Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's page. Thanks!
With a solemn prayer
I whisper
“God, please let me wake up
to this same room.”
I was putting my bag filled with shirts and shorts into the closet of my hospital room around 7:00 o'clock in the evening of May 6, 2009, when the door opened and a nurse with her brown wooden clipboard emerged from the hall.
"Good evening," she smiled as she greeted me. She looked around and saw no one else. My parents, my father’s colleague and his wife who was a former practicing nurse on that same hospital and the same person who referred me to the surgeon, who all went to the hospital with me, were having early dinner that time when the nurse came in. Her eyes went back to me and said, "Are you the patient?"
After I got the results of the preliminary tests on my blood, chest, and heart (must be that my surgeon needed to confirm that the rupture had not caused complications to my blood and other vital organs), I decided to have myself admitted that same day to the hospital, under my specialist surgeon’s advice that it would be much better to undergo operation the soonest time. He told me a day before not to worry about the wound, he assured me that it wouldn't be necessary to incise a bigger entry point on my navel based on his findings during the physical examination, and on the test results from the first hospital I had visited. I endured the not-so-intense-anymore pain and was able to walk without wincing, probably because of the antibiotics I've orally taken prior to seeing him and, as what he had explained, my immune system was strong enough to counter the infection and the rupture was also contained by the epithelia. That, I’ve reckoned, made me so lucky.
“Yes,” I nodded as I replied.
She glanced over me before saying, “You are scheduled for an operation tonight at nine, but you will be taken to the operation room by eight. Your surgeon will be attending you right after he finishes operating on another patient.”
I said, “OK”.
Then she told me that the doctor ordered an NPO (Nihil Per Orem), which meant I must not eat or swallow anything including liquids from that point on until further advice. I’ve never eaten a thing since lunchtime.
I was tempted to ask the nurse how many patients were being operated on by the surgeon for the day. I have this fear that I found hard to suppress, such fear that although the surgery would be minor, unperceived or unexpected factors resulting to malpractice or failure are just lurking around even for the most experienced doctor. And I was thinking, what if the doctor was too worn out for the night’s schedule? What if the anesthesiologist would miscalculate the dosage? Questions that might sound silly to a certain degree or situation but still rational and valid. What if? Despite writing a poem filled with optimism, I found it hard to dodge from my pessimistic fear now that I was facing it.
To tell you honestly, from the time I knew I needed operation up to the very moment I waited for it in my hospital room, I was diverting myself and my mind to something else so I wouldn’t worry about the surgery. Things like reading a novel I’ve already read, tuning on the TV, browsing the internet, and sending sms to friends. And most of the time I succeeded. Now, lying on the bed with printed bed sheets as I watched Discovery Channel, my mind came back to reality. It all went back to me. The anxiety, the worry, the fear. The silly thoughts.
Thirty minutes to eight, the same nurse appeared carrying a plastic filled with tubes and IV bags.
“Sir, I will be administering this now to you. In a while we will be giving you your first shot of antibiotics, but first we need to perform a skin test. You are not still allowed to eat or drink anything.”
Her second line boggled me. “Skin test?” I frowned.
“It’s a standard procedure to find out whether or not you will develop any allergic reactions to the medicine,” she explained clearly. The antibiotic she was referring to would later be injected to me through the IV tube once a day. And it cost around $50 per vial (injected once).
Fifteen minutes after the nurse disappeared behind the door, a team of nursing students with their instructor marched into my room followed by the entourage of my parents and their couple friend, which made me a bit confused and nervous. I don’t really feel comfortable being surrounded by interns on their practicum, performing procedures that made me felt like a guinea pig in the laboratory. The male student conducted the skin test on me, and I winced to the terrible pain. The female student handed me the surgery gown and told me to take off all of my clothes. I waited for them to all go out before stripping off.
A few minutes after eight, a stretcher was wheeled into my room by two male nurses accompanied by the same nurse who came first to see me. She instructed me to lie on the stretcher while she transferred the IV bag from above my bed unto the hook rod protruding from the stretcher. Just when I was wheeled out of the room into the hallway, my father tapped his right hand on my shoulder to loosen and comfort me and told me it’s just a minor and everything would be just fine. I didn’t see my mother’s face, perhaps because I was so distracted by my own thoughts and fears and worries.
As they rolled me down the hallway, my eyes were blankly transfixed at the white ceiling, mumbling silent prayers, hoping that what the surgeon had told me was right, that my phlegmonous appendicitis had not spread into my other organs and that the operation would not be complicated and would only need small incision. I prayed as they stopped pushing and pulling the mobile bed I was lying on, and I prayed as the nurse injected the first shot of antibiotic through the IV tube. The nurse asked me if I felt scared, which I found myself unable to answer. I just smiled at her and listened as she told me that my hand was cold. I didn’t noticed how cold my hands were the same way I didn’t feel if my heart was throbbing fast. I was still staring at the ceiling, familiarizing myself to the hospital hallway.
When we arrived to a hallway right before the sterile room, they transferred me to yet another stretcher, made me wait for I didn’t know how many minutes, giving me yet another time to stare and remember the pinhole design of the white ceiling. A young man in blue, collared shirt and white pants, whom I presumed was another intern, even passed by me and said good luck. I didn't know exactly what to say in that moment, so I just gave him a faint smile.
The nurse relayed to another nurse in green surgery uniform the details pertaining to my records and medical specifics, before I was wheeled into the sterile room, past a huge, bright room and into Room 8, where the huge octopus surgery lamp attached to the ceiling and wires and a narrow bed with straps waited for my arrival. As we passed by the big room, I saw a sole patient there sleeping soundlessly the pain away.
Noticing my head turned to my right to see the sleeping patient, the woman in mask and green who wheeled me in quietly said, “That’s the Recovery Room. That’s where you will stay for another 2 to 3 hours after the surgery.”
I looked away.
Inside Room 8, monitors were turned on and wires were attached somewhere in my chest, one clipped to my left thumb, and an automatic sphygmomanometer strapped around my right upper arm that monitored my blood pressure every 15 minutes, according to the surgery nurse in green. She told me that my surgeon and his team will attend to me right after they were done operating another patient. Seconds ticked into minutes, which later became an hour and a few minutes. The room was very quiet except for the beeping of the machine that monitored my heartbeat. I felt tired and sleepy. And at times my eyes were tempted to sleep, but I refused to. I didn’t want to. I should wait first for my doctor to come in.
I stared at the huge surgery lamp overhead that vaguely resembled a star, which was subdivided into five hexagonal groups each containing several white-light bulbs. I stared from time to time at the electrical outlet beside its base, with reasons I didn’t know. I looked around, turned my head from left to right, from the two chatting nurses in green by the table to the big door beside them. The monitor beeped, the A/C hummed, the silence of the room echoed inside my head.
Then my friendly, approachable, composed surgeon came in, smiling as he walked toward me. “How are you feeling?” He asked me, his smile relaxing and assuring. And I found my negative thoughts actually lessened by something in his aura that made me trust his competence and expertise.
“I’m OK, thanks.”
He asked me to pardon him for the delay, and then explained. I told him it’s OK.
The anesthesiologist emerged from behind him and explained what he was going to do to me. When he said he’d give me a dosage that would numb my whole abdomen down my legs and give me something to make me sleep, I felt very, very relieved to perceive that such method would be much more safer than letting anesthesia alone send me to sleep. I’m not really certain though and this is just a hunch, but I have the feeling the latter tend to pose more risk for malpractice. And besides, I’ve watched that recent movie entitled AWAKE, which I wondered if it would ever occur in my case. That, too, I prayed not to happen. Perhaps I’m beginning to develop paranoia by watching too much movies and TV. But gladly, at this point, I was able to dismiss that fear and worry.
He instructed me to curl up, and then injected the dose into my lower spine. Later he pressed a needle’s tip against my belly and asked me if it still hurts. When the drug was in full force, he then put me to sleep with another drug. A minute or two later, I fell asleep.
I woke up to hushed voices or conversations and light clacking of metals. The sight of my chest and all of my lower body was concealed by a cloth hanged on a metal rod shaped similar to a miniature soccer goal. I knew right away where I was, and I knew the surgery was still ongoing. A man in mask glanced at me, disappeared and, moments later, I went back to sleep (or sent back to sleep, I wasn’t sure though).
When i woke up the second time that night, I woke up to a different but familiar room. With still blurry eyes I looked around to see other two awake female patients on transportable beds in my far right. One of them was talking to a nurse, the other one next to her was watching them. At first I didn’t feel anything, but then as things sunk in, I began to feel surging pain down my navel. And it hurt so bad that I called the other attending nurse and asked for a pain reliever. After administering a shot, they told me they were to move me back to my room. I begged them to make me stay for another hour, after the pain became bearable enough for me to leave from their care.
I was brought back to my room at around 2 in the morning, where my parents, my sister and my uncle from a town several kilometers north of the city were waiting. My father’s colleague and his wife weren’t there. Probably had gone home. I slept for another four hours and woke up to the heaving of my wound.
By seven or eight o’clock that morning, I tried and managed myself to roll to my left side as advised by the resident doctor under my surgeon’s team, because the intestines tend to stick to each other if there was less movement of the body. And it would not be a good thing to happen, he informed me. And so I tried, then rolled to another side. And early that afternoon I asked my father to help me get up. Later that afternoon, I was already walking around my bed, holding to its metal rails as I slowly took one pace at a time.
I was admitted to the hospital last Wednesday, May 06. My father’s birthday. And we were supposed to be celebrating as what we had planned weeks ago. Go out to a KTV bar or a beach. But that didn’t happen. Three days later I was discharged under my doctor’s advised and permission. This coming Thursday, hopefully, I will be going back to my doctor’s clinic to have the stitches removed.
NOTE: You might be wondering why the sudden change of plan for the operation. Well, the thing is, we seek for another doctor's expert opinion, which this time came from a gastrointestinal specialist who I found to be more credible and competent; whereas, the first surgeon who advised me to undergo operation four weeks from the day he read the ultrasound result, was a general surgeon. Besides, the first hospital estimated P80,000 of total expenses, and there's a tendency that the incision would be much longer. Whereas, according to the second doctor, the specialist, he estimated around P50,000 and assured me the incision would only be a few inches long, and said it would be best to undergo surgery the soonest time. We visited the specialist the day after we visited the first hospital. And by Wednesday I was scheduled for the operation.
Photograph by Du Truex. Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's Flickr page. Thanks!
Today I've heard from my doctor a news that was hard for me to absorb. A news that was not even near my list of expectations to hear. Last Friday I felt a mild pain at the middle of my abdomen, right deep under my belly. I thought it was just some sort of muscle pain or an ordinary stomachache, so I wasn't at all disturbed and spent the rest of the day typically. The following day, the pain began to increase its intensity but still mostly felt where it was. Only this time, the pain seemed to intensify at indefinite intervals and radiated from the middle towards the surrounding areas but a little noticeable to the right. It became more painful in the afternoon, and the sharp spasms became more frequent during the night. Some time in the afternoon I informed my mother about it, telling her something's not right. She asked me a series of common questions. I told her I didn't have a diarrhea, or constipation; my bowel movement was normal. I didn't have a fever, and I did not feel weak. Just the painful stomachache, nothing else. She opted to treat me with herbals as first aid, and during the wee hours of the evening, when the pain made it difficult to put myself to sleep, she decided to bring me to a hospital. On the third day the pain remained sharper and the spasms remained frequent and painful, still in the middle and would scatter toward the whole abdomen when spasms occur. I told the doctor I did not lose my appetite and did not vomit. They asked me more questions, told me to take some blood and urine tests, and then later instructed me to take the ultrasound test first thing the following morning after they had found out that the white blood cells were high. This morning, the ultrasound result reported that my appendix is infected and has already erupted, but the infection has not spread because, as what the surgeon later said, it was caught and trapped by an internal body part having that function (I could not remember the medical name, and have no idea what's the layman's term). When the physician said they could call a surgeon to operate me that same day, fear and worries rushed in even more as they already have. I have never been to any operations before, and the idea of having an operation imperils my dream of working abroad. I am scared of undergoing an operation as most people do, I believe. Also, it will cost us big amount of money, which we don't have. The savings I've had from working in Taiwan for 5 years mostly went to the house my parents helped me bought, redesigned and enhanced. The rest were all spent financing my application for a job in New Zealand, which until now is vague. My previous experience was in a manufacturing industry, and the next one is technically the same. Physical strength is totally required, and the applicant must have no history of operations. The surgeon came and physically examined me and asked questions. This time, I told him the pain has somewhat shifted to the right since I woke up this morning. After informing me of the ultrasound results and what it meant, he prescribed antibiotics to be taken for six weeks and scheduled me for an operation four weeks from today. He said that it was the best time to remove the appendix, except of course if the pain becomes too intense, which needed immediate operation. I looked at my mother; I could feel and see that she's worried. But my father was brave as he always is. I pray to God that everything will be alright. After going home I could not think of something else except this. I even doubt if I could write a poem tonight. But here's what I've decided, I will definitely undergo the operation, bravely. There are ways to get the money, and I don't worry much of that now. And I don't want to worry about it in the days to go. Money is just money, life is something much more.
During the month of May some species of plants, mostly ornamental, come in full blossom quietly exhibiting their beauty, color, and value. It is for this reason that the month of May here in the Philippines is known also as the Month of Flowers. It is also during the whole run of this month that the Catholic community observe Flores de Mayo, a gathering of children and young adults, both male and female, singing praises for the Virgin Mary and offering to her fresh flowers. At the shoulder of the road the perennial green stands too long devoid of beauty, thirsty for honest acclaims --- an eyesore to many. But through the march of May its blossom is praised by this passing girl. And she who walks abreast lost her clamors to a mind that poses to reckon such prior prejudice; Eyes captured by those delicate petals, which beauty now mums the tongues of men. And the carols of the distant bell call for the feet to tramp still to where divinity avows their worth and where the flower be laid from those times it was mostly ignored.
Today is supposed to be the start of Flores de Mayo, but I've never heard of children talking excitedly of going to church the way my generation used to. I can't help but wonder what had happened between then and now.
Anyways, the following poem celebrates the life of a flower and depicts its worth...
Photograph from the website www.passionflowers.co.uk. Please CLICK HERE to go there. Thanks!
At some points in our lives we come to a pause right before an intersection, figuring the choices we are going to take, fearing the uncertainties behind our head. And in my life I have come to so many points where I doubt my own conviction, question those pieces that comprise myself, and reconsider choosing a thorny, weedy, rocky decision of letting myself free but failing all those around me...
It is during these times that I heave my hands forward, coping for some strength to switch on the streetlights alongside me...
Wake up,
dear eyes!
Untrodden path
right before me,
My feet cease
with uncertainty.
Hands hoisted,
tearing such
deafening serenity
Groping in the
cold space
for rails
For I dream not
to stumble
into the unknown,
into the foggy
lonely distance.
Voices heard,
those in my head,
those screams of
the silence ahead.
Seeing through
the thick fog
my eyes want to
foresee such
strange territory
that reigns ahead,
Visions of the future
vague as a
twilight beam
My feet are slowly
moving forward
facing, embracing
fear.
Starving
quicksand
Awaits derailment
and for my walk
to stray.
Wake up,
dear eyes!
Photograph by Raindog. Please CLICK HERE to visit the owner's Flickr page.Thanks!
Several times aboard a marine vessel that transports me between the island provinces of Bohol and Cebu in central Philippines, most of those happened during the late hours in the afternoon, I had witnessed the fairly eye-catching setting of the sun behind the low mountains of Cebu, with its radiance illuminated from a dome of orange and red and deep purple.
Most of my travel at sea between the two islands I traveled alone; I enjoyed the fresh salty air and the calmness of the sea, the state of being alone creates a tranquil room for self-reflection and contemplation. I am the kind who enjoys the company of my close friends and likes to travel with them, but I also enjoy and prefer to travel a few hours at sea by myself. It is when I reflect on the things I've done or should have done in the past, and figuring where this road I'm taking is leading to.
The sunset is my sole company during those times. Amid handfuls of strangers and passengers I find wordless conversations with nature. But it gives me a twinge of guilt going back into it over and over, finding solace in it, blinded most of the time by my own desire to fill some emptiness inside me, and making use of the sunset's company without even giving a slightest expression for its beauty.
Now, it is just time to say these words...
Receding is its fiery beauty
to the western heaven's infinity,
That mystical venture into dusk
is its routine glorious trip---
An endless prompt
for the insatiable poets.
In the sky it's the serene belle,
the cosmic masterpiece on symmetry
Summoning all eyes
to its dome of motley diffusion---
A day's closure so grandeur
hails the waking of night into action.
Shadows cast to the east such impressibility,
Evoking the fantasies of a mind so engrossed, so visionary.
The blending of darkness to the
dimming rays' heavenly hymn ---
All praised by the songs
of my singing pen.
Photograph by H_takeec. Please CLICK HERE to visit the source page. Thanks!
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