My Islands

Even as the bough breaks
from the sheer weight of song
so does my heart break with love,
so will my rivers flow
to kiss the sea's warm eternal breast,
so will my islands poise their hills
against the sun.

My heart is proud
of this dream and prouder yet my rivers
of the faith that keeps the pace
of tides and moons, and prouder
still my islands of their hills.


From - who else? - the late great NVM Gonzalez, National Artist. I confess I found his A Season of Grace hard going; my mind is not built for the patient reading it requires. But I always always loved My Islands, which I first encountered in one of my first- or second-grade textbooks back in our Malolos days. Often when I read this verse it calls up an image of a sleepy bamboo grove somewhere in a barrio. In this mind's picture, it is always noon. The sun is a white glare in the sky. Someone -- a tired farmer, perhaps -- has wiggled into that leafy refuge for a midday nap. His hat is a crushed pillow cushioning his head, and his limbs are asprawl in slumber. He snores. Around him all is quiet except for the friendly hiss-hiss-hiss sounds that bamboo makes when the wind stirs it, and the gurgle of a nearby ilog.