This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 9, April 1-7, 2007
Two Visits
BY SARAH RAYMUNDO
Posted by Bulatlat
He was no stranger after all.
He had a better topic:
She was of the Underground while he
The kids turned out well, anyhow.
My teacher, she would ask me about you.
She tore a piece of paper from the edge
He stared at the characters for eternity,
Telling this burns her still.
Her image is as soft as pinstripe pastel,
March 26, 2007
Posted by Bulatlat
========================
*after Janna Harris' 1859:Galena, Illinois:
"This, all of this,/lives in the Before of my life." In The Dust of Everyday
Life:An Epic Poem of the Pacific Northwest, 1997:48. Seattle: Sasquatch Books.
Editor’s Note: Sarah Raymundo who is an
assistant professor of sociology in UP Diliman and General Secretary of the
Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND) visited
Satur Ocampo at the Manila Police District last March 25. Satur’s wife Bobbie
Malay, former professor of journalism at UP Diliman, was with him. © 2007 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
(For Bobbie Malay)
Pinstripe Pastel. That would have been his wife
if she were a theme
for a mobile phone's interface.
"Funny thought," the visitor tells herself
as if to dissimulate
the abyss of discomfort
involved in jail visits to strangers.
People know him by his fist
(usually clenched for photo-ops and for life).
Is he, like the old folks in their hometown,
wearing cheap pomade?
She wasn't suppose to ask,
not when he is wearing a blue-collared shirt
neatly embroidered with a sign:
BAYAN MUNA.
"Tell her about our youngest."
And she,
with a lilt that is unmistakably hers,
who thinks that her past sixties
should be hers and not her students',
could not but continue to speak
in that cadence,
obligingly did.
was, as he is now, a legal personality.
While some local actor was fast becoming a household name,
Hers was almost forbidden in their household.
She left motherhood for a cause
and History has yet to confirm this suspicion.
But before they did
the youngest came
to visit her
with the most urgent question:
Tell her I'm in the province.
By now, the child has grown impatient.
It's not that. She wants your name.
What is your name, Nanay?
of a daily, wrote her answer and
handed it to the little one.
(that was how she calculated time)
folded the piece neatly and inserted it
in the side pocket of his walking shorts.
He walks out of prison bouncing.
He is now into the family secret.
She thought this, all of this
lives in the before of her life.*
it begs the visitor to rake her fingers through
like a comb.**
**after Book Four Ink: Thomas and Helen Hodgson (Olympia, Washington, State
Capital, Swantwon Lane, 1890-1891: "...From/a few bushels of wheat/(saved by
settlers who/ate rootbread) have sprung/twice as many hectares/of weaving green
so/soft a color it begs you/to rake your fingers through/like a comb. " In
Joanna Harris' The Dust of Everyday Life:An Epic Poem of the Pacific Northwest,
1997:123. Seattle: Sasquatch Books).