mabuti pa

Mabuti pa
ang palaka,
hindi nagkakasala
sa kanyang
Lumikha.

How will my life end?

I was lazily surfing the Net, looking for nothing in particular, when a thought struck me like a lightning bolt. I suddenly realized how apathetic and oblivious I am to the horrific suffering this world undergoes day after day.

There's that Andes-rocking earthquake in Peru which entombed hundreds of people under tons of rubble in a span of minutes. And there's the Darfur conflict, whose death toll has been reduced to a mere statistic in the minds of the populace by excessive publicity.

And of course there's that category 5 hurricane (translated: weather monstrosity) which, having just pounded the sandy beaches of Jaimaica a few hours earlier, is about to hit the western coast of Mexico in a few days. (The latter I haven't shaken off my shoulder that easily because there's a slim chance of us getting hit too. :-X)

The point is, every time I draw a breath in, hundreds of people breathe their last, some with a grim death-rattle, others with a quiet sigh. And yet I treat the preciousness of my existence like oxygen -- it's in the air, I desperately need it, yet I don't give much less a thought of gratitude for it.

You know, realizing now that my life is as tenuous as spiderweb thread and can be cut and torn and whisked away from me when I least expect it, makes me a bit nervous. Even though I am a Christian, and have been one for three years already, the uncertainty and fragility of it all still causes a substantial measure of discomfort and unease to well up my bowels.

So I thought about it for a while. The poem below is a half-baked result of my musings.

How will my life end?

Will it be like
the inglorious white-hair fuzz
of a balding dandelion clock,
scattered into the wind by
the soft, steady puffs of old age
with the memories of years long-gone?

Will it be like
a gleaming crystal goblet,
lofty and proud amidst a shelf of medals --
that suddenly shatters in an instant,
amidst choking grunts
and an urgent call for 911 --
due to a tiny blood clot
fatally out-of-place?

Will it be like
an unwitting and docile heifer
about to be slaughtered
in a hell-house of rusted steel blades,
out of whose butcher-stabbed neck
warm blood spurts out and collects
into a bucket of nickels?

Will it be like
a languid morning mist
that slowly vaporizes,
basking under the warm rays
of a rising egg-yolk Sun,
while it humbly whispers,
"You must increase,
and I must decrease?"

Will it be like
a rickety closet door
that opens into a Narnia
of unimaginable and blinding splendor,
ruled by a Lion-King
who welcomes me,
weak-kneed and trembling,
to rest my head on His glorious mane?

I'll never know for sure,
But this I do: that it will end
in the tender hands
of One who promised
"I will never leave you,
I will never forsake you."

sin is...

Sin is being content
to stuff my grumbling stomach
with limp slices of Spam,
when right in front of me
is a thick, juicy steak --
courtesy of a free coupon
from the Celestial Grillhouse.

Sin is scuttling away from
the Farmer's running hose
of sparkling water,
to dive and wallow instead,
amid my hoggish grunts,
into the stinking cesspool
of my own filth and excrement.

Sin is spreading my whore's legs
before a gang of hoodlums --
whose services I pay for
with my Husband's money --
even though I know full well
that He stands behind the ajar door,
watching, watching
with a broken heart.

some haikus

World-weary sinner,
fall down to your knees before
the Cross and be saved!

His sin-cleansing blood
flows free from His side. Draw near,
rejoice in His love!

Turn back from the gold
that rots like mold, and look up to
Life everlasting.