On reading poetry

I am immersing myself in poetry.


I find myself remembering: words are seduction that pull me in, never mind if I don't understand all their meanings, it is enough to peruse the words, to hear them resonate in my inner ear, to savor the richness of their texture as they flow over my tongue, and caress my palate.

Words still continue to be my indulgence. A certain twist, overheard conversations, a billboard, signs on the street, children talking, first lines of a book, scribbles on a scrap of paper, my brother's instant messages, they are all capable of moving me.

Where I now am, the writings of Filipinos far away from the land of their birth, move me. I wonder what memories live inside them, what myths inspire them, all these thoughts - these emotions – these experiences resonate in the images they put in words onto paper. I find myself astounded, overwhelmed and engulfed by words that move me to remember how I came to love the written word itself.

Without poetry, language loses its music.

I loved poetry before I fell in love with story, and in a sense, the cadence of lines, the imagery of poetry continues to haunt me.

I acknowledge my shortcomings. Words defeat me.

Is this why I always look for meanings behind stories that I read? Is this what I am reaching for constantly? I can't seem to find that hidden I am, can I? I'm always straining to catch sight of something around the corner, something more beyond the bend…

So maybe, we are all born with poetry in our veins. Perhaps not in the way critics understand poetry, perhaps not with the education of meter or rhyming or with the sophisticated poshness belonging to literary geniuses, but in the sense of meanings hidden within images, in the strength born of the desire to communicate emotion and feeling, the true me not hidden but revealed.

So I can say to you, "the world is beautiful. Let me paint you a picture that will live on and grow on inside your mind, inside your heart…"

Move me.

Let me move you…