drift 2025-11-27

from Los Baños:

After closing the gate behind me, I'm immediately welcomed by a trail of mud on concrete. Where did this vehicle come from? Some of the vacant lots uphill? Or was it just parked at the wrong spot last night? At Arayat, water company men pour asphalt on the piece of the road they dug to install new pipes. The large truck pouring the asphalt obstructs most of what is already a very narrow road. Walkers slide through what little space is left. I pass through and smell the smoke of thick asphalt cooking. At the other end of the road, a small cariton was left by someone. On it, piles of carton and a few metal strips. Rocks on the roof of houses remind me of how fragile everything is. At Raymundo, I found myself in the middle of bodies and sweat. I saw her again talking to someone on the other end of the call through earpieces. Behind her, a silver ring fell off a keychain touched by this gentle sunlight—I, too, feel warmed by it. As I cross the bridge, my feet moved under me as I stared at the large trunk that fell on the steep bank of this creek of Molawin. It has been wrapped by vines—the same vines that now cover this old large tall tree in front of the new library building under construction. The tree was spared after all others have been cut. The wall of tin roof that covers the construction site has been vandalized. Imperyalismo ibagsak. I hear voices behind the wall.

At Freedom Park, mud is everywhere. Signs of the times. There is mud on his white shoes as he persists to walk the trail that cuts through the park. To sit on the bench surrounded by wet soil, she raises her legs. Soccer goals stay still over brown stained grass. All the mud remind me of a cow corral back in the province. Further down Juliano, I stare at the corrupted YMCA building. A yellow tape blocks one of its car entrances. A young tree has grown through one of its balconies. Wet air has licked most of the railings, reminding me once more of what happens when we forget. At Roxas, I lay my eyes on a block of wood on the road now stripped and pulverized. Further up, grass has grown through and over a strip of asphalt that was either thrown there or has separated from the road after some time. A car's tail light briefly blinked right before the car went left.

This chill November afternoon
at the dormitory hallway
a curtain of laundry.

At Madamba, he stops briefly to ask me if I'm riding. I move my head to say no. The e-jeep is empty, except for one passenger who just got in. At Copeland, I pass by two boys practicing arnis and a larva hanging from a tree I can't see. I am wrapped by the cold air and thoughts of the protest nearing. Heads have dropped, but perhaps this is not enough. I see a snail and it's excrement hanging on a white wall at the end of its slime. I see Aglibut this afternoon. I hear crows cawing.

Taking a nap,
feet planted
against a cool wall.

(from Bashō, The Essential Haiku translated by Robert Hass)

...having experienced the impermanence of life [人生の無常] in her own real life, it seems that she was led thereby toward a religious quest [宗教的な探求].

(from Andrew James Brown, “How Women’s Education Should Be — From the Standpoint of Mori Wasa-Sensei [森わさ先生], a Seeker of the Way [求道者として]”)