Reflections 3

Reflections 3

Dr Abe V Rotor

1. Reflection by a Waterfall

"Reflect not my folly and greed ...

Reflect not the future gloom ..."

Amadeo Waterfalls, Cavite.  Photo by Marlo Rotor c 2005

                              Reflection by a Waterfall

Reflect not my folly and greed,

Never Narcissus of old;

Of the deities on his shoulder,

Of youth never growing old.

Reflect not of the future gloom,

Of Heaven denied and lost,

Lost pristine and the butterflies,

And of the Malthusian ghost.

Death is an empty shell I see

Lying in the murky depth,

And a lone deer in memory

Shall man someday pay his debt.

The Good Life, oh we always say,

Is progress and destiny,

Taming both time and space

To create our sense of beauty.

Narcissus, what lesson have you

Taught mankind since you fell in?

Oh, beauty, the land of the doomed,

Where lust is the greatest sin. ~

2. I love the rainbow

"it's reborn when worn and old

into a cathedral in the sky.""

Rainbow across the Bamban River, Tarlac. 

Photo by Marlo Rotor, author's son.

I love the rainbow

because it holds a pot of gold

that glitters in kaleidoscope,

and prism on its huge crown,

where lovely deities play I'm told;

it's reborn when worn and old

into a cathedral in the sky

cherubim sweetly sing in praise,

humbling the proud and bold;

it guides the lost from the fold

and those searching for heaven -

a rainbow suddenly appears

whenever faith grows cold. ~

    3. Dirge of a Dying Creek    

                     "I am dying, dear mother, I long for you and my kin;

I choke with debris, laden with waste matter,

my banks are no more, concrete walls have taken over,

I am dying mother ..." 

        

The afternoon sun casts an aura of the creek's once beautiful state with trees and shrubs lining its banks. Now the creek is virtually dead - biologically. Note highly polluted water and dumped quarry materials blocking the natural waterway. (Parallel Aurora Blvd, QC)  

.

Dirge of a Dying Creek                   

  

Once upon a time, so the story goes, clouds gather 

     from the sea and land, cumulus to nimbus,

falling as rain, drenching the trees and grass and all,

     and down the lake and river and field it goes. 

I was born this way, like my kin, many miles away,

     children of Pasig River, seat of a civilization,

the artery of vast Laguna Lake and historic Manila Bay,

     and I, a tributary of this magnificent creation.     

I lived in the stories of Balagtas the poet laureate,

     in Rizal's novels, Abelardo's Kundiman song,

I throbbed with the happy heart of a living system,  

     like the Rhine, Danube, Nile and Mekong.

I am part of history, obedient to man and nature's will,

     I gave him clean water and fish, I sang lullaby;

laughed with the children at play under my care,

     through generations and time sweetly went by. 

Seasons come and go, the story goes on - ad infinitum -

     but where are the birds that herald habagat?

where have all the children gone after class, in summer?

     reflection on my water, green carpet on my rock?

I am dying, dear mother, I long for you and my kin,

     I choke with debris, laden with waste matter,

my banks are no more, concrete walls have taken over,

     I am dying mother -  but my mother doesn't answer;

     my mother doesn't answer.~