Garden Tales

Garden Tales 

A Patch of Eden

Dr Abe V Rotor

Odes to my Idol Writers and Authors

Odes to my Idol Writers and Authors

                                             By Abe V Rotor

1. To Jose Rizal

Your enemies tried to silence you,
     and curtailed your freedom;
the lamp flickers its last rays at dawn
     to seal your martyrdom.

2. To Aesop
Ah! Animals talk louder than men
though in screech, crow and bleat;
yet by moral and sanity, speak
not the language on the street.

3. To Ernest Hemingway
You seemed as brave as the old man
     in your great masterpiece;
the soldier, the hunter, the dreamer -
     yet wanting a life of peace.

4. To Charles Darwin
You did not give up to your critics,
    who only prayed and preached;
Around the world you witnessed,
    change by random and fit.

5. To Lola Basiang (penname of Severino Reyes 
You touched a million-and-one lives,
     around campfires in their prime;
like Grimm and Anderson and Homer,
     storytellers of all time.

6. To Boris Pasternak
Zhivago, to the end walked away alone,
from love neither in winter nor fallow;
what romance away from the war zone
wrapped him in doubt and sorrow.

7. To Mark Twain 
I am a boy forever, Tom or Huck,

    down the Mississippi loafing;
and let the world go on sans care
    what grownups are missing.

8. To Robert Louis Stevenson
"Kidnapped" made a boy into man
too soon to faced a cruel world;
learning quickly the art of war
deceit, conceit, gun and sword.

9. To Oscar Wilde 
You're a creator of characters and events,
     in novels, stories, and plays
children and adults alike on the armchair
     live in those times and places.

10. To Arthur Conan Doyle
"Sherlock Holmes" lives to this day,
     idol of any detective;
"The Lost World" remains of the past,

     is back in our midst to live. ~

Where have all the native fruits gone?

Where have all the native fruits gone?

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

                                 Tiesa (Lucuma nervosa), siniguelas (Spondias purpurea)

Where have all the native guava gone,

the bats and birds and the young one?

Where have all the sweet nangka gone,

its fruits buried under the ground?

Where have all the old piña gone,

on the upland, sweetened by the sun?

Where have all the red papaya gone,

solo by name, the only tree of a kind?

Where have all the pomegranate gone,

friendly though like the deadly one.

Where have all the pako mango gone,

to cook the finest sinigang?

Where have all the big pomelo gone,

its rind made into jelly and jam?

Where have all the red macopa gone,

the laughing children in its arm?

Where have all the native santol gone,

set aside for a large-seeded one?

Where have all the tall mabolo gone,

sapote and caimito that ripe into tan?

Gone to the genie everyone,

technology’s child becoming man. ~

 

 Black Sapote (Diospyrus digyna), Atis (Anona squamosa); 

native guava (Psidium guajava), macopa (Eugenia jambalana) 

Common Filipino Folk Superstitious Beliefs

Common Filipino Folk Superstitious Beliefs 

Compiled by Dr Abe V Rotor

Washed clothes should be taken from the clothesline at night, 

lest they be stolen and worn by dwarfs.

1.    All about moles: A person with a mole on his foot is a born adventurer. A person with a mole on his face will be successful in business. A person with a mole in the middle of her nose will be rich but unhappy.  A person with a mole close to his eye is attractive to the opposite sex.  A mole on the hand signifies wealth or thievery. A mole on one's back is a sign of laziness. A mole along the path of tears will be widowed. A mole on the sex organ is sign of active sex life.

2. Encountering a yellow butterfly will bring you good luck.  If a brown butterfly enters your house, you will lose money, if it is a black butterfly a relative is going to die.

At the end of the rainbow is a pot of gold. 

3. It is a good idea to change the name of a sickly child. That way you may be able to fool the spirits who are causing the sickness. 

4. The number of steps on a staircase should not be in multiples of three. Count off the steps as oro (gold), plata (silver), and mata (death). The last step must not fall on mata.

Acknowledgement: 

Filipino Folk Beliefs Blogs - Estareja, Mendiola , Alamares , Borlongan
Living with Nature, AV Rotor
Living with Folk Wisdom, AV Rotor

Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Ring of Fire in acrylic, AVR 2016

Besieged by advancing culture, 

a forest once sacred and pristine,

falls into the evil hands of man - 

and man loses to his old sin. ~   

Early Sunset of a Landscape

   Early Sunset of a Landscape

"Landscape - but whose landscape?

robbed from people, robbed from Nature..."

Dr Abe V Rotor

View from a hill in Antipolo, Rizal, June 1, 2013

Afternoon and it's already sunset,

behind gray clouds the sun's shining,

wearing a red veil over the horizon,

with dust stirred into the air floating.

Beauty in birth and death - and life,

in between - clinging to final fate

in man's hand - and oh! how lonely,

how sad, nil of hope and losing faith.

Landscape - but whose landscape?

robbed from people, robbed from nature,

from beauty sublime, to one's design

for gain and power, not for the future. 

And he speaks on behalf of progress,

measured by concrete and steel,

by the amenities of the Good Life,

in unending want, incessant fill. ~   

  

The Eye in the Coral Reef

The Eye in the Coral Reef

Dr Abe V Rotor

The Eye in the Coral Reef, Acrylic Painting by the author 2015

The eye! The eye!

among the corals watching.

conscience of the sea,

over Homo sapiens fishing.

It never winks, it's alive,

guarding against man's folly,

whose eye, not of man,

disgraced guardian of the sea. ~

University of Santo Tomas (Founded 1611) Oldest Center of Academic Excellence

Dr Abe V Rotor

 

UST has one of the biggest student populations in Asia with some 50 thousand enrolled in two dozen colleges and faculties, from conservatory of music, fine arts, medicine to graduate school. 

Symbolic commitment for peace amongst religions.

Participants to the 7th Asian Conference of Religions for Peace, UST 2009

Graduate students take a break on a field study

On retreat for the quadricentennial of UST

Seminarians on seminar

The late Joey Velasco (in light t-shirt), is shown here with Dr Dante Lerma, and the late Dr Florentino Hornedo, and the author (far right) during his painting exhibition at UST. At the background is Hapag (Christ's Last Supper with Poor Children of Payatas QC). 2008Communications students under Dr Abe Rotor, pose with Joey Velasco (center, standing row), The untimely demise of the artist is a loss not only to art but humanity.   

 
Public school teachers in Metro Manila and suburbs pursue special courses at the UST graduate school under the government's program of upgrading education in the country.

Students working as a group is good training in bayanihan, a Filipino tradition.

Graduate students in biology study the rich flora of the university campus.