“Tuwing magbubuhol ng talinhaga,
huwag limutin ang tanikalang
nakapulupot sa laya.
Mabuhay ang tula!”

-Francis “Kapi” Capistrano
Dating Patnugot ng Matanglawin

“Hindi mo ako kilala.
Hindi kita kilala.
Sa labas, ang buwan,
nagtatanong:
may alak pa ba? (Ewan.)”

-Mikael Co

“Kapag ang loob ay nagkakaroon
ng malaking puwang para sa takot,
pagdududa; at unti-unting
tumutulo ang mga luha-
Tatag lamang, mahal, tatag.”

-Twinkle delos Reyes

“Kasingsarap ng manggang hinog
ang pagsusulat tungkol sa pag-ibig.
Pukulin lang nang pukulin ng tsinelas
ang mangga para magsulat ka lang
nang magsulat. Huwag hihinto.”

-G. Alvin Yapan

1.- Artesanos de la madera

2.- El tornero

3.- La madera en la sierra de Albarracín

4.- La talla de la madera

5.- Los aserradores

If what I ascertain is correct, these four girls are the main characters from Shib’s 4 stories.

Where are the men Shib!? WHERE!!??

Gabriela Mistral es el seudónimo de la poeta chilena Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (1889-1957), nació en Vicuña pequeña localidad del centro norte de Chile. El pseudónimo se inspiró en Gabriel D’Annunzio y Fréderic Mistral.

Su labor literaria comenzó a reconocerse desde 1914 al figurar en diversos concursos. En Nueva York (1922) fue publicado Desolación, su primer poemario y desde entonces viajó por numerosos países de América y Europa.

En 1945 fue galardonada con el Premio Nobel de Literatura. Es fue el primero concedido a un escritor latinoamericano como un justo reconocimiento no sólo de su producción poética, sino de la labor literaria y social de una mujer que había dedicado su vida a la difusión de la cultura y a la lucha por la justicia social y los derechos humanos. Sus obras más conocidas son Ternura (Madrid, 1924), Tala (Buenos Aires, 1938) y Lagar (Santiago de Chile, 1954). Algunos como Lecturas para Mujeres, Nubes blancas, Poema de Chile, Poemas de las madres y Motivos de San Francisco, así como sus artículos periodísticos, han sido menos difundidos, y otros inéditos se han publicado hace relativamente poco tiempo. Tales son los casos de su Epistolario y de sus Recados contando a Chile.

Falleció en Nueva York en el año de 1957.

Vergüenza

Si tú me miras, yo me vuelvo hermosa
como la hierba a que bajó el rocío,
y desconocerán mi faz gloriosa
las altas cañas cuando baje el río.

Tengo vergüenza de mi boca triste,
de mi voz rota y mis rodillas rudas.
Ahora que me miraste y que viniste,
me encontré pobre y me palpé desnuda.

Ninguna piedra en el camino hallaste
más desnuda de luz en la alborada
que esta mujer a la que levantaste,
porque oíste su canto, la mirada.

Yo callaré para que no conozcan,
mi dicha los que pasan por el llano,
en el fulgor que da a mí frente tosca
y en la tremolación que hay en mi mano…

Es noche y baja a la hierba el rocío;
mírame largo y habla con ternura,
¡que mañana al descender al río
la que besaste llevará hermosura!

***

Besos

Hay besos que pronuncian por sí solos
la sentencia de amor condenatoria,
hay besos que se dan con la mirada
hay besos que se dan con la memoria.

Hay besos silenciosos, besos nobles
hay besos enigmáticos, sinceros
hay besos que se dan sólo las almas
hay besos por prohibidos, verdaderos.

Hay besos que calcinan y que hieren,
hay besos que arrebatan los sentidos,
hay besos misteriosos que han dejado
mil sueños errantes y perdidos.

Hay besos problemáticos que encierran
una clave que nadie ha descifrado,
hay besos que engendran la tragedia
cuantas rosas en broche han deshojado.

Hay besos perfumados, besos tibios
que palpitan en íntimos anhelos,
hay besos que en los labios dejan huellas
como un campo de sol entre dos hielos.

Hay besos que parecen azucenas
por sublimes, ingenuos y por puros,
hay besos traicioneros y cobardes,
hay besos maldecidos y perjuros.

Judas besa a Jesús y deja impresa
en su rostro de Dios, la felonía,
mientras la Magdalena con sus besos
fortifica piadosa su agonía.

Desde entonces en los besos palpita
el amor, la traición y los dolores,
en las bodas humanas se parecen
a la brisa que juega con las flores.

Hay besos que producen desvaríos
de amorosa pasión ardiente y loca,
tú los conoces bien son besos míos
inventados por mí, para tu boca.

Besos de llama que en rastro impreso
llevan los surcos de un amor vedado,
besos de tempestad, salvajes besos
que solo nuestros labios han probado.

¿Te acuerdas del primero…? Indefinible;
cubrió tu faz de cárdenos sonrojos
y en los espasmos de emoción terrible,
llenaron sé de lágrimas tus ojos.

¿Te acuerdas que una tarde en loco exceso
te vi celoso imaginando agravios,
te suspendí en mis brazos… vibró un beso,
y qué viste después…? Sangre en mis labios.

Yo te enseñe a besar: los besos fríos
son de impasible corazón de roca,
yo te enseñé a besar con besos míos
inventados por mí, para tu boca.

I took a sip from the steaming mug in my hand. Coffee—hot from the kettle, roasted from the berries in the forest around us and brewed in the old way—boiled over a wood fire and then strained in a cheese cloth.

In the middle of this coffee farm inside the Bataan National Park, coffee is not a powder from a vacuum-packaged bag or a frothy drink from a swanky café, but bean that means life, a heritage that goes back to a hundred years.

We were seated on benches recycled from hewn logs under a mango tree. The forest flourished around us. The smell of mulch, big trees, rich earth permeated the air and over it, the smooth aroma of brewing coffee.

I am not a coffee drinker myself, but I could tell from the near beatific expression on the face of Ben, our camera operator, a guy addicted to caffeine, that this coffee was good. He says as much to me.

“Aaahhhh,” he murmurs.

The flavor was strong and masculine.

Our host, Gina Mangalindan, a bio-chemist and third-generation coff ee farmer, informs us that we were drinking barako, or the Philippine Liberica, reputed to be one of the best coff ees in the world. Eaten with palabok and Bataan suman, we were set for a perfect afternoon discussion.

We were here to hear about Gina’s advocacy to return her barangay, Tala, to the days when there were more than 2,000 hectares of coffee land in the area. Today, coffee farming is down to 800 hectares in the former coffee bulwark. Only half of this is developed farmland.

“After the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo,” says Gina, “there was no coffee program created for coffee rehabilitation in Bataan, and so many of the coffee trees died or became unproductive.”

Coffee production in Tala began to decline. The decline was further spurred by the rapid drop in world coffee prices in the late 90s to early years of 2000. Farmers lost interest in their farms due to the oversupply of coffee in the world market from Vietnam and Brazil. Farmers panicked and shifted to other crops while their children, who were not trained to become coffee farmers, turned to other professions for their livelihood.

But Gina insists that coffee is still the way to go for the people of Tala.

“Coffee is a common drink for all, for all season,” she says, “It is like sugar, corn or rice, minus the maintenance.  There are more coffee drinkers now worldwide than ever before and so there will always be a market for coffee,” she adds.

In fact, the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST) projects coffee demand in the Philippines to reach 89,638 metric tons of green coffee beans in 2020. Today, coffee production in the country is only about 41,200 metric tons per year.

There is a current shortfall of about 35,000 metric tons. To make up for this shortfall, the country is importing coffee from Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the U.S.

“We used to be exporters of coffee in the country’s coffee heyday,” exclaims Gina. “Now, for shame, we are importing coffee!”

The country must reach coffee self-sufficiency by reviving the coffee industry. To do this, the NAST came up with the Coffee Industry Strategic Plan (ISP) for 2020.

Under the strategy, 60,000 hectares more land in the country must be planted with coffee compared to its current status of 80,000 hectares. Forty municipalities in 20 provinces in the country will be identified as coffee towns under the One-Town-One-Product (OTOP) scheme developed by the Department of Trade and Industry. And small coffee growers will be turned into entrepreneurs by giving them access to technology, credit and market.

“If Tala can become one of the identified coffee towns, the livelihood of the community is assured,” says Gina. She tells us that there is as yet no OTOP in Tala.

The lack of a coffee program for Bataan has made Tala farmers victims of vogue crops like jathropa, cut flowers, mahogany and what not. However, because a small farmer can only produce in small quantities, the full potential and viability of the vogue crop is never realized for them. Gina believes that the farmers should return to their roots and realize the full potential open for coffee farmers especially in the light of the coffee strategic plan.

“Our problem has always been that the government has never seen Bataan as a coffee producer,” laments Gina.  The province, she says, is not even listed in the 20 coffee producing provinces in the country for 2003-2004.

“But the coffee community does exists here,” says Gina. “Nestlé saw our potential way back in the 90s and they provided us with a huller facility capable of loading 3 tons a day. But because there are only a few coffee farmers left in Tala, we can only produce roughly 1 ton a day during the coff ee season which is from January to March.”

Nestlé has been buying all of their coffee at world prices since the 1990s.

There are other advantages to reviving the industry in Tala as well. The barangay is within the protected area of the national park and its buff er zone and therefore perfect for agro-forestry—meaning coffee trees can be planted within the forest without cutting down the trees.

Once planted and grown, coffee trees bear fruit continually year after year needing no water or other specialized care. Old trees have only to be rehabilitated and rejuvenated by cutting and pruning to spur new growth.

Additionally, turning Tala into a coffee town would benefit the indigenous people in the area as well—the Aetas, who own 10,000 hectares of ancestral land in the area.

“The Aeta’s are interested in planting coffee.  The third and fourth generation farmers are willing to go back. In fact, the people here have already committed 2,000 hectares for coffee land,” says Gina, “but we need quality seedlings. We need storage. We need drying facilities so that we can produce high grade coffee.”

When coffee is not properly dried, berries ferment and the coffee is not good.

“My mother has a very good nose,” Gina tells us, “By aroma she can tell if the beans were bloated with moisture during the drying process.

“The coff ee you are drinking now is good, but not so good,” she laughs.”  We learn that after harvest, the rejected beans are usually left in the farm for daily consumption while the best is sold to Nestlé.

I looked at Ben behind the camera. His face said, “Ooooh! Gimme, gimme, gimme! Let me taste! Let me taste!”

Gina tells us that another advantage of coff ee as a crop is that once properly dried or roasted, the beans can be kept indefinitely. Coffee does not rot.

Today, all Gina and the rest of Tala can do is wait. Lobby and wait.

In the meantime, the coffee trees will be flowering soon and the boughs will become heavy and fragrant with the creamy white blooms.

For two nights during this time, Gina hangs a hammock and mosquito net under the mango tree where she likes to spend the night. “This is my very own special aroma therapy,” she says. “I wake up enveloped by the fragrance all around me, like sampaguita. Then I am able to harvest coffee honey from the honey bees that nest in my trees. In two months, it will be Christmas and I have set aside special bags of coff ee to give my friends,” she says.

“This alone fulfills me,” Gina reflects. “This alone makes me a successful coffee farmer.”

Inte sällan avslöjas en bluff i konstvärlden. en uppmärksammad och kritikerrosad utställning visar sig vara en schimpans verk, eller varför inte noshörnings? i bästa fall ett förvisso mycket ungt människobarn. Representanter från andra områden, ur spektra av ting mänskligheten kan förmå sig att prestera tack vara intellekt och andra egenskaper oss förunnat, ler i mjugg. Men, det sker av okunskap i så fall: detta är ett fenomen som kan inträffa och utan tvekan inträffar inom deras eget område. Vad detta nu månde vara.

En föreläsare kan exempelvis genomföra sitt föredrag så väl och med sådan entusiasm att åhörarna lämnar salen svävandes på rent lyriska moln, men med föga eller intet nytt i fråga om kunskap som behållning efter föreläsningen. Vi väljer hellre att bli hänförda än upplysta, inte sällan förväxlar vi dessa båda ting, eller rent av tar dem för att vara samma sak.

Det har genomförts en del experiment på fenomenet och det visade sig att åhörare, experter på ett rent vetenskapligt område, inte kunde penetrera den mask av charm och retorik en föga insatt skådespelare tog i bruk under sitt ”föredrag”. Vid ett tillfälle vågade skådespelaren rent av på konststycket att sammanfatta vad han hade sagt. Ett konststycke i mening att han egentligen inte hade sagt något alls av värde. Men, det gick.

Varför går vi på det? Varför inte räcka upp handen en gång till och hävda med bestämdhet att ”du har faktiskt fortfarande inte förklarat vad du menar”. De finns de som ägnar sig åt mundiarré som, om vi verkligen lyssnar noga, tar sig rent sagomässiga utsvävningar och det är märkligt att vi inte gör som flickan i ”Kejsarens nya kläder” – pekar och säger som det är.

Av rädsla för att göra bort oss, gör vi bort oss ännu mer.