One Hundred and One

 

One Hundred and One

There are

some days

that speed

past me,

I hardly

recall a

moment.

Except for

that tiny

detail.

“Will you

play with

me?”

And I said,

not now.

And out of

a hundred

things,

I know

it was the

one thing

that

counted.

Image: Volkan Olmez of Unsplash

April 20, 2021

#NaPoWriMo2021 No. 

Gravida, Para, Abortus

Gravida, Para, Abortus

by Justine C. Tajonera

In a few notations, I reviewed my reproductive life.
One miscarriage at the end of the first trimester.
I didn't have a name yet. Blighted ovum.
No one's fault. Tears.
The first live birth to term. Happiness and
weariness all at the same time. Fourteen hours of
labor. Emergency caesarian. A son.
One ectopic pregnancy. I remember bleeding
in the toilet, after an office meeting. I kept
saying, "No, no, no. Please stay, please, please."
Frightful, intense pain in my right abdomen.
Operation at dawn. Emptiness. Tears again
in the recovery room. My brother called on
my cellphone. No one else was there.
One more live birth. A girl, finally.
No protracted labor. I was wiser, this time,
rooming her in immediately, not caring
what the nurses said.
One scar, two children, two
deaths, two births. All of it fit in four
digits: 2, 0, 2, 2.

I credit a fellow poet, Jimmy, for helping me with this edit of the poem:

In a few notations, I reviewed my reproductive life.
One miscarriage at the end of the first trimester.
I didn't have a name yet. Blighted ovum.

No one's fault. Tears. The first live birth to term.
Happiness and weariness all at the same time.
Fourteen hours of labor. Emergency caesarian.

A son. One ectopic pregnancy. I remember
bleeding in the toilet, after an office meeting.
I kept saying, "No, no, no. Please stay, please, please."

Frightful, intense pain on my right abdomen.
Operation at dawn. Emptiness. Tears again
in the recovery room. My brother called on

my cellphone. No one else was there. One more
live birth. A girl, finally. No protracted labor.
I was wiser, this time, rooming her in immediately,

not caring what the nurses said. One scar,
two children, two deaths, two births.
All of it fit in four digits: 2, 0, 2, 2.

Also adding a note to this poem:

Note: This was written after our annual physical exam at the office. It felt very surreal to be processed from one station to the other. The doctor wrote cryptic numbers on my sheet. I took the time to figure it out, afterwards. The title refers to the GPA system but what was actually written on my sheet was TPAL (T = babies born to term, P = para or preterm births, A = abortus or miscarriage, L = live births). Gravida is the number of pregnancies.

NaPoWriMo#16: Wedding Ring and Nature (Two Poems)

NaPoWriMo or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

Below are two poems in pantun, a traditional Malay poetry form.

Wedding Ring
by Justine C. Tajonera

The wedding ring sat quietly atop some books.
It quietly disappeared that same afternoon.
Between us, there have never been more than looks,
no proofs of love required, no vows under the moon.

Nature
by Justine C. Tajonera

I watched our pet hamster, Mindy, devour
two of her newborn pups one afternoon.
I ask if war and hunger and poverty are
things we inflict on children who are least immune.

NaPWriMo#11: Resurrection

NaPoWriMo or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

Resurrection
By Justine C. Tajonera

From nowhere, from sleep, from darkness
there will be a light, a bright source.
I refuse a never ending darkness and
forgetfulness. I cannot say that I am right.
It is not for me to claim or to prove.
It will not do anything for me now.
But it is a comfort. The bindings left
on the stone. The hush of the moment
after oblivion. It is a fiction worth repeating
to children afraid of the dark, afraid of being
left behind to fend for themselves.
It was a story I was told as a child.
"She is safe. She is in heaven. She is
waiting for you." And I have believed it.
It has never had to be true.

NaPoWriMo#9: Reparation

Reparation
By Justine C. Tajonera

I crawled into bed after having chased you
in the mall. My white shirt was the worst choice
for spaghetti and pizza. All I want is nothing
after a morning filled with you. Gratitude is
something that hasn't occurred to me yet.
Your shrill cries are still ringing in my ears.

I crawl out of bed looking for you,
Looking for reparation. There will be a day
when all I want is for you to shout at the
top of your lungs, "Mommy, Mommy!"
There will be a day when I will want those little
hands around my neck even with spaghetti sauce.

NaPoWriMo#7: Breasts

Breasts
By Justine C. Tajonera

They titillate and arouse,
they sell cars, beer, and tuna.

They give life, they give children
a valley of comfort and soothe their cries.

I imagine kings, popes, presidents and prime
ministers once helpless children in their
mothers' arms, cradled at midnight,
rocked in warm embraces.

They are covered up obsessively
or strategically displayed.

They are painful, bloated, turgid
until they are suckled by a hungry child.

I remember my son with a high fever,
his tiny body wracked with vomiting,
still seeking my breasts even with eyes
closed, even in pain.

There is a language for breasts that
make them fruits or puppies or things.

There is a language for breasts that only
children speak and it is sacred.

Mayday

Mayday

by Justine Camacho-Tajonera

"Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature."

- The Georgia Guidestones, Elbert County, Georgia, U.S.A.

The stones say that five hundred million can maintain balance
with nature, only five hundred million, no more and no less.
I watch my children sleeping, one is five and one is nearly two.
Are they one of the five hundred million? Are they the
seven out of the ten in the whole world?

When floods come and go and take our children with them
who can say why? Who can say that there was a reason?
Who answers for them? Who decides why it cannot be me
instead of them? Who will trade with me? Who will pack up
their dinosaurs and biscuits in their bags and wipe their tears?

The world turns, the stones creak, the core of the earth
burns hot (or cold, who is to say?), we orbit the sun,
we are pressed to the earth by laws of physics
whether our hearts are breaking or not.
Balance is not something to be persuaded.

It is a world of miracles and small wonders that I live in,
a bewildering mix of forces, of consequences, like our rooms
that flooded when we left our windows open yesterday.
I gather these two in my arms, I gather them as summer, as a
May Day in other parts of the world, imperishable in the heart.



Picture By AmpCoder (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Who Got Me Into Reading?

by Justine Camacho-Tajonera

I would have to say that it was my Mom who got me into reading even though she died when I was only three years old. She left so many books behind that I was too intrigued to leave them alone. One of the first books that I got my hands on was Justine by Lawrence Durrell, one of her favorite writers. For obvious reasons, I was drawn to it. I wrote my name on it when I was very young. I wrote an essay about it called Claiming Alexandria in the now defunct literary journal, Pen & Ink. It was on marginalia and how it has a very personal history for me.  You see, my mother wrote notes in her books. Others may claim that it's a messy habit. But not for me. I'm so glad she wrote those notes. I have a piece of her that I can always keep with me. Whenever I'm in a secondhand bookstore, I automatically look for the Alexandria Quartet (Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea). I named my daughter Clea, naturally.

There were other books in her library too: The Sacred and Profane Love Machine by Iris Murdoch, Five by Iris Murdoch, Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, Women and Madness, and so many more. I will always be grateful to her for leaving this legacy to me. I've had a peek at her world and who she was through the books she read.

I make reading a part of my family life now. I make sure that both my kids catch the habit and see me reading. Reading books is a wonderful thing. It's not just a pastime. It's a whole world of thinking that cannot be replaced by TV or the computer. And it's a way of keeping my mother's love alive too.

Image from http://www.larsenbooks.com.au/c19.htm

A Prayer for Mica

by Justine Camacho-Tajonera

I never met you.
In the first picture I saw of you,
you were wearing a pink shirt and a shy smile
and the word, "Missing," was at the bottom,
in the white border.
Watching the news, later on,
when I saw the rushing flood water,
I felt the weight of the mud,
of a whole archipelago
dragging my heart to the bottom
of a restless river.
In my mind, my arms, my hands stretched,
sifted, held on tightly
to the edge of your shirt,
wanting to hold on
to something.

No, you will not be
forgotten the way the internet
buries yesterday's news
in a sea of status updates.

When we said grace
last night, my son,
your cousin, whom you never
met, said, "Mommy, let's pray
for her," with the urgency
of someone who will not
accept that life ends,
that your smile would
ever dim.

When I hold my children's hands,
I hold your hands too.


For my niece, Mica Samson, missing since the wake of Typhoon Sendong, Dec. 18, 2011. 

Fairy Godmother

Fairy Godmother 

by Justine Camacho-Tajonera

There is a corner shop

waiting for her.

Only she knows its name.

One day, she will look out the window,

watching the afternoon light

filtering in,

an absentminded smile

on her face.

Her hands will be holding a pair

of padded shears,

cutting through a rich,

burgundy velvet fabric.

And on the corner of her

working table,

she has ivory lace

for a Peter Pan collar.

On the pattern paper beside her,

she sketches dreams

for little girls

who cannot wait

to shine.

For Jaja

Image from Olgalis | Dreamstime.com

Storytelling

by Justine C. Tajonera

Tell me the story again
of how we met,
if I listen often enough
I might say it by
heart
in my sleep.

When the children are grown
and have children
of their own,
maybe they will tell
our story.

Maybe when the stories
are told often enough
nothing is
forgotten.

Who might know what
the truth will be
if the story
is all
that matters?

Be careful with the way
you string the words
together
because that will be
how they
will be
sung.

Tell me again,
tell me
again

and we'll never grow
old and never be
weary.

(May 24, 2010)
Image of storytelling by the fire from Simon Barnes, copyrighted but licenses for further re-use with permission.

The Bottomless Bag

By Justine C. Tajonera

The day ends and there is still
so much to do.
The lists never really
come to a stop,
life is a cyclic
river,
a race
with no
finish line.

And here is where
a mother
makes sense
of this bewildering
derby:

Her heart
is a bottomless
bag.

Her literal purse
overflows with the keys to
her kingdom,
a treat for each child.
But her heart
has room for
everything:

Every little joy
or grief,
all the lightness of laughter
and the weight
of betrayal
and tears,

all the paradoxes
of loving unconditionally
and letting go
in the same
manner,

all the bittersweet
knowledge
of loving what is
temporary
and ever-growing,
ever-reaching
for the door.

When you think
she cannot
give any
more,
she wells up
with surprises.

Ask her why.
She will never

explain.

(Nov. 11, 2009)

Picture from the game Magical Empire™, used with friendly permission. Illustration drawn by Faugar.