Birches by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay
As ice storms do. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow crust---
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter of fact about the ice storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows---
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles from the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed across it open.
I’d like to get away from Earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

The Diary

How do you say good-bye? When does leaving begin?

Unlike beginnings, endings often do not have a specific demarcation line. I remember my college classmate telling her mother after watching a Sharon Cuneta movie to stop complaining about the ending "Gusto mo ata hanggang magkaroon ng anak, apo at mamatay si Sharon. Mahabang pelikula yan."

Indeed endings are only when we think they are, but can always not be.

The Diary

What do you know of love and adoration suffered in deepest silence?

Life goes on without you, but the shape of my heart will forever be changed.

Travel Travel Travel

"The Beach" defined my generation. It was what Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" and Kerouac's "On the Road" was for my time.

The image that reminds of of the film version is when Leonardo de Caprio was smoking off the pension house balcony wandering what else Thailand has to offer when every tourist does was to look for things that are similar to home.

In the process of globalization and the becoming of countries into one nation, with identities changing and borders lost travel has become easier, faster and cheaper. The world becomes a virtual oyster for those with willing spirits. But the funny thing is when we are there in a new unknown territory it only takes a minute until our thoughts of home comes back and we end up looking for a familiar face, a usual taste, a bit of home. luckily for us Filipinos, it has becoming easy to spot people like us around the world. Walking down boat quay trying to decide on which restaurant we were going to eat and talking in Tagalog, a waitress suddenly greated us in tagalog and invited us to try their food. Amazed, we ended up eating there.

Padre Gian Carlo Bossi

As I write this post, the Padre is still in captivity with no proof of life since his abduction two months ago.

The Padre has been working as a missionary in a parish in Zamboanga Sibugay after saying mass, he was captured by armed men and since then no contact with the Padre or his kidnappers has been made.

I just attended mass at a Carmelite monastery celebrated by priests from the Padre's mission. In the homily, the priest said that a letter from his niece read: I am not worried about you because I know you are a true disciple. In these times, I use to wonder about the relevance of missionaries. I realized that I have a very limited view of their roles. I was brought up and made to believe that they were to convert natives to the faith. And my tearse Catholic education did not make a change. It was the Padre's abduction in a way which made me realize that doing missionary work is not converting others who don't believe but also converting those who believe into understanding. Christ did not come and forced Himself on us. He came and showed us and in the process made us see good in our paths to Redemption. And the Padre has been doing that. As a true disciple, as I gathered, one need not be afraid. The Padre's abduction has been touching lives and is becoming a strong statement of his work.