All the ghosts of my race sighing

December began with two ekphrastic collections by Marne Kilates and will end with a (likely unfinished, surely on-repeat) volume of Cirilo Bautista’s poetry. During this sort of shift, devices and conceits are thrown into stark contrast, one poet immediately (naturally? necessarily?) becomes intertext to the other. 

As I neared the fiftieth page, Bautista takes over completely. Kilates is still there, but in another room, rustling and bumping about, not a bother. Bautista is the light here, the sound, the vibe.

It’s the third time I encountered his “Athens, Ohio, One Winter Night”. He read it during a PEN meeting, on the third floor of Manong’s Solidaridad bookshop (these details are so fuzzy, forgive me). Elmer Ordoñez almost immediately published it at the Sunday Times Magazine. These are all, likely, the second version. I say likely as I remember the electric blanket, not the lovers, but this is just me, my memory failing. I have the STM page stashed somewhere, but I recall (correctly, I hope) the poem taking up significant print space, and the second version is 70-line strong compared to the first’s reported 17. I say reported, as when I wanted to refresh my memory, I went search engine, and, lo, here’s Marne Kilates on Marjorie Evasco on Cirilo Bautista.

The poem begins with these three lines: “You never loved me,” a boy outside my window / shouted, breaking the cold crystal night. / “Why should I love you?” a girl shouted back. 

The poet overhears, obsesses, marking himself immediately as other in terms of age, race, and passion. As I re-encounter the poem, I move as Cirilo’s other, not entirely oppositional, and not in the same categories or degrees, the first version of myself as listener/reader of the then very much alive Cirilo by now also distant, maybe as today’s I will be to an older, less or more interested, future reader.

I will likely return to these paragraphs to edit (Christmas dinner and the makeshift photobooth are already set downstairs). Above, I concealed my discomfort toward some conceits which I and most Filipino poets share. Maybe when I’m stronger I will share my thoughts. The title though—2/3rds of a line from  “Athens, Ohio, One Winter Night” poem—will remain untouched.