Dreams Alight

The child had a vision he will arrive at this moment. He saw everything before all these happened, the images was clear in his reveries, the picture was complete in his imagination. His mind’s feet had walked this path, his mind’s senses had lived this moment. It was not easy for his young mind to understand the vision, It was not easy for his young heart to contain what he saw. All he knew then was to dream. There was a map engraved in his heart, the mind followed the direction that took him to the present.

 

The child grew up to be that man in his vision. Standing still, he look back, following the tracks of his journey back  to the child who told him many stories they weaved together: 

 

The child dreamt.

 

Him, lives. 

 

 I sketch a landscape in my mind’s canvas;
Tracing the figures using my child’s eyes.
Paint it with colors just the way it was.
I feel brimful of joy that my soul cries.

   

  

(”Rendezvous” series 1 – 4 oil on canvas 20×20, by Jeques B. Jamora, 2009)

There’s the refulgent streams of the river
Flowing beneath the bamboos’ lush bowers.
Their drowsy whistles I still remember.
When winds blow through the leaves and the boulders.

 

There’s the rock that rests on the reef of stones,
Where the tyke sits when he would go fishing.
Silence croons him with nature’s pristine tones.
When a fish pulls his bait, his heart’s dashing.

 

There’s the lily that cupped the morn’s dewdrops.
Frogs stay motionless on their giant leaves,
Until an insect strays by their tongue traps.
Their prying eyes ever alert like thieves.

 

 There’s the damselfly that hovers above
My head and the tip of my fishing rod.
A scene I always remember with love,
It never fails to cheer me when I’m sad.

"Dreams Alight" study oil on canvas 30x30, by Jeques B. Jamora

 

 There’s the sun peeping through the verdant trees;
Casting their shimmering hued reflections
On the running waters like pageantries.
Moving me to profound contemplations.

 

Ah, idyllic landscape, ethereal arts.
We always have that child’s nook in our hearts.

(”Childhood Nook, Revisited!” From the poetry collection by: Jesus B. Jamora, 04/21/06)

  

“Dreams Alight” oil on canvas 36X36, by Jeques B. Jamora, 2009

I am now  beginning to slowly understand the child’s vision that used to scare me. I am now starting to polish the rough edges of the images and lay the pictures on the frames as I translate the vision to become my breathing, throbbing realities.

I awake to the present to write on the pages the stories that the child once told me. I alight to this moment where his dreams had landed long before I arrived.

I used to think I was chasing my dreams, I now understand I did not. Like  the damselflies that alight on my palm as a kid, dreams, too, alight when I learned to open myself and keep my heart still.

 

~ Jeques

Le coeur attend

If I strip off this mind and show you my thoughts, would you like what you will see?

If I open my heart to your view, would you like the pictures that you will see inside?

If I bare my soul naked to your eyes, would you ever learn to love me?

I clad myself with things that I thought you would like me wearing, but went home not recognizing my own reflection in the mirror, so I stripped myself off from the things that the world wanted me to be and view myself as I am.

I befriend my thoughts and got familiar with the terrains of my uncharted mind building my own empire in solitude.

I listen to the songs of my heart and memorized its lyrics as I study paeans of love that this heart dreams to sing for you.

I come to terms with myself, got to know the naked me, caressed the skin of my soul, accepted my flaws and learned to care for the lovely soul inside this body.

"Le coeur attend" oil on canvas, 24x30 by Jeques B. Jamora, 2009

 ’Tis when I fully understood the colors and the shapes and molds, and the forms, and the feel, and everything about my soul that I trully begun to learn to dress up. ‘Tis when I learned to listen to my heart’s songs that I was able to write his poetry. ‘Tis when I completely viewed my soul with all my senses that I was able to limn the images of the empire I inhabit in my mind reflected in the canvas like vignettes from the corners of my imagination.

 

Notice me.

For once,

Just be with me.

See my heart and soul

And let time

Stand still ~

 

Look at me.

Show me the spark

behind those eyes

That you would not

Reveal.

 

Talk to me.

Translate your silence

To words

So I would fathom

The tenderness

In your glances.

 

Write to me.

Send me letters

Of your heart

So you would fill

My empty page,

This void

In my chamber

That patiently

Awaits.

 

Visit me.

Anytime of day

While I’m awake

Or even in my dreams

In my hours

Of sleep.

 

Touch me.

Run your finger tips

On my longing cheeks;

Reach out

For my hands

Awaiting

For your reassuring

Grip.

 

Show me.

What’s behind

Those elusive eyes

So afraid

To stay still

Always looking away

From my direction.

 

Whisper to me.

I want to listen

To your heart

And hear

The language

Of your soul.

Let it speak.

 

Just for a brief moment,

Please look into my eyes,

Let time stand still ~

And be

With me.

(”Notice Me,” from the poetry collection of Jeques B. Jamora, 2008)

How do you like me wearing the fabrics of my soul and not the clothes that the world imposed on me to wear when I was younger?

If I tell you what’s inside this mind, would you like what you will hear?

If I tell you you’re part of the dots and lines I create, that you’re in my every brushstroke, each word, each line, in every piece of me would you even care to notice and listen?

If I tell you I weave my story around you, would you be interested to hear that story or buy the volumes of book I write in my mind about us?

 

Don’t be excited with what you now see,

Don’t love me for what I have so far shown.

Be excited with what else I could do ~

Love me for what more I can show you.

 

If I tell you that my thoughts of you reside with me in an empire, would you decide to live there ~

 

And if I tell you I build us home in my heart,

 

 

Would you come home with me?

 

 

 

~Jeques

.

.

L ‘homme qui J ‘aime

What If

By: Jeques B. Jamora

 

What if the poet in me dies,

What if my heart’s verses lose their rhymes?

What if my passion is gone,

And there’s nothing left undone?

.

What if my brush strokes cease to form my thoughts?

What if my paintings fail

Their colors fade

To worthless images?

 

“L ‘homme qui J ‘aime” oil on canvas, 24×30 by : Jeques B. Jamora, 2009

 

“What if’s,” too many to hold on

Perhaps, I should just carry on.

.

What if you’ve got enough of me,

And get bored of me?

What if you shut me up, and oh God,

You would stop, just like that!

.

What if everything’s done,

You and me forever gone?

.

Let it be written then among the stars in heavens,

Painted in the infinite skies,

And here on earth engrave them on the marble 

Of my tombstone:

 

Once, there was love here ~

‘Tis pure~

Though ’tis human for a man.

~

I may sound narcissistic, but learning to love myself helped me define the amount of love I am capable of giving, and helped me define the kind of love I am capable of taking.

Our greatest fears in loving, and giving and taking come from our human mistake of fearing to love one’s self. We go out of our self, we go places, find and wanting things, obsessing people, chasing love, forgetting the true source of what we are looking to be just  here all along,

Inside our hearts.

It is everyone’s wish to find that one person that would complete our story. Mine, too.

I wish you well.

~ Jeques

My Oasis

There are times when we need to leave the safety of the harbor and answer the beaconing of the future in the horizon where the skies kiss the seas ~

The unfamiliar arched skies and the daunting blue of the ocean may appear uncertain, and there may be no written guarantee accross the seas but we take out our anchors from our sunctuaries, take the chance and sail anyway.

"Our Sunctuary" oil on canvas 20x24 by : Jeques B. Jamora

There are moments in life when we have to leave the roads that are very familiar.

It is our human nature to explore uncharted terrietories.

There’s that part in us that needs and longs for the change of landscapes.

And so we leave the paths that are safe and take a detour, stray away from our every day roads, throw the maps and just go ahead and get thrilled with things new.

We all need to face our fates at a certain point and take that arduous trek in the desert to fulfill the only obligation we have in this life to reach our destinations.

"Our Fate" oil on canvas, 18x18 by : Jeques B. Jamora

Such things happen many times in our lifetime. Sometimes we do it awake and aware, but often it just happens and we wake up one day in the middle of the desert, or in a new road, or sailing in the ocean’s uncertain blues like we are inside a dark hole and that only our presence could fill that void.

I chose to be aware and awake when I take a detour or sail – I don’t want to be thrown in the grounds unguarded. We can all control our destiny. We can all choose the kind of battle and our kind of journey.

Now for those who are wondering where I’ve been?

I’ve gone painting!

I feel like I need to leave the familiar roads, the safety of my harbor in writing and take a plunge into the uncertainty of the blue horizon that’s been beaconing me for the longest time. So I left the safety and the happy company of the language, of the friendly words that coquet my thoughts and the pages to answer another call of traveling alone in my journey with my art. 

It is important that even how far the distances we reach in our travels, we need to be in touch with the isles that once became our harbor, and the trails that would lead us back to the roads that we once took that brought us where we are at the moment.

"Our Trail" oil on canvas 24x30 by : Jeques B. Jamora, 2009

No matter how long we travelled in the deserts of this life, we need to be in touch with things and people that once became our oasis. Poetry and writing are the oasis of my soul. And I will always be back here, now and again, to drink and dine in the bounty of their  inspiration.

~

You are my daily dose of life,

My daily drop of hope.

You are the reason I’m moving on,

And why I need to cope.

~

You are my oasis

In this life’s desert

So I can stand up

And walk.

~

My love,  you are the oasis of my heart, and I will always be back in your sunctuary, in the comfort and warmth of your presence for it is you who makes my journey worthwhile. 

 

Gone Painting

 

For

 

Those

 

Wondering

 

Why

 

I

 

Have

 

Not

 

Been

 

Writing . . .

 

 

“The tyke’s gone painting”

Please click image to view my art portfolio in progress >>>

"mystic" oil on canvas 20x20, by Jeques B. Jamora, 2009

 ”Mystic” oil on canvas, 20×20 by : Jeques B. Jamora, 2009

A Prelude To A Million Dreams

My creative muse prompts me to begin writing on a fresh page as I start a new process of knowing. This is the time of my life when I do things because I feel like doing them. Like, I write because I would like to read my thoughts tangible in words taking form written on pages, so I would get a better grasp of them.

Like the damselflies of my childhood, I don’t chase my thoughts anymore now that I’m grown up. My mind, like my palms to the damdelflies, I will open so dreams and thoughts could freely alight to show me their beauty. I will befriend this elusive guests instead of running after them like I did during my reckless youth. Perhaps this way, I could encourage their frequent visits.

To The Deeps

At midnight

When half the world is asleep,

The prying eyes of the nocturnal owl

Stay alert for mice dozing undergrownds.

.

A turtle slowly prowls in a swamp

Disturbing the resting fishes

On the shallow waters.

.

Somewhere, you are confined

Asleep in your room dreaming.

While I stay awake questioning.

.

Am I part of your dreams tonight?

Would I take part in your life

When you awake in the morning?

.

The night ends

With the owl catching no mice.

The fishes has gone to The deeps,

But the turtle hasn’t reach where ’tis going.

Just like me with my doubts never fading.

.

But nevertheless always wishing

That one day I’d stop questioning

And to The deeps I’d just let the fishes

Swim.

Unhurried thoughts and dreams come pellucid like the reflection of the summer skies on a placid river. I aim to write my thoughts that way: to achieve such clarity. These thoughts, my dreams reflected on pages as I allow the readers to grasp them like viewing the river and the skies on a clear summer day.

But sometimes, words are just ain’t enough. There are thoughts and dreams conceived that come in defined shapes, definite forms and rich colors. So I capture them in sketches. Such thoughts and dreams come alive on pads as my pen and pencil give them skin and the ink give them blood and the images from my mind come throbbing alive in sketches.

But then again, oftentimes, I am haunted by vivid dreams and thoughts that not my pen and the pencil nor the ink are enough to breath them life, to bring them the colors like the coquettish fishes flirting my mind with their exotic dance moves in the river where my mind often hovers. They demand to be born and inhabit the canvas, and only my brush strokes could give them soul, only the pallette could bring to life their hued reflections flickering in my imagination ~

Conspicuous in light and shadows.

This is the time of my life when I am fully in touched with my creative muse and the river of my mind is on its calmest state, where any minute movements are reflected that could stir ripples of dreams, and rapture of colors like the blossoms in springtime. The pages and the pads and the canvas are like the verdant fields where my dreams bloom. They are like the river in my mind where the fishes swim to the deeps in their coquettish dance moves that preludes to a million dreams.

The damselfly is within reach – I am taking time to appreciate his beauty as he hovers and I, motionless wishing the damselfly would soon alight in my palms.

Who says that dreams are black and white?

Ingrained

"Childhood" oil on canvas, 24x30 by : Jeques B. Jamora, 2009

“Childhood” oil on canvas, 24×30 by :  Jeques B. Jamora, 2009

 

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the places I often visit since I came here, it became like the secluded dusty paths I used to take when I was a child pulling my carts to endless directions in circles that my young mind then could imagine.

I am naturally solitary.

There are things that I grew up doing alone, and they are what I really love to do. Against all odds, I silently fought for these things and from where I stand now, I thought I have somehow won those battles.

In one of my quiet strolls in the museum communing with the spirits of the artists gone and living, I observed young students in a group sketch session. I was deeply moved, I felt envious and sad. It dawned on me, I’ve always done my arts alone, closed doors, dettached from the world. My father was highly critical of my early works, he is the first battle I fought to shield my natural gift from the many forces that discouraged me and my early pursuits in finding my voice as an artist: my soul in my works. 

Watching this young students brought me back to my sketching sessions as a kid. Any empty paper and writing tools are my art materials then – give me anything I could sketch on and I could survive long hours alone away from people. I envy these kids doing there arts in the company of their classmates, enjoying art moments with their friends. When they are my age years from now and they would stroll through this quiet room, these paintings in the wall would remind them of this moment, but more than that, the walls would echo their whispered giggles that would bring back happy memories. 

As they weave their memories unaware, I went back to my own. I visited my solitary self struggling to find meaning in the used to be senseless dots and lines I put together to create images that seem so insignificant then. Little did I know that those dots and lines would bring me to this point, to look back and find the trails I left to guide me back to how and where my journey started.

I am 36 years old. I started sketching perhaps when I was about 3 years old before I learned how to write, when my grip was strong enough to control a pencil or a pen. I remember my mother was my first teacher and our first subject was flowers. She stopped teaching me when my flower sketches look nicer than the ones she taught me. I’ve outgrown the art lessons of my mother quick, and then she became my first admirer, my first fan, my first follower and collector of my works. My first art exhibit was in her store as she show my drawings in the pages of her record notebook to friends. That was my version of an art institute.

“flowers” #1 pen and pencil on paper by : Jeques B. Jamora, 2009

But there was a negative energy, too, my first critic: my father. He thought my works were insignificant and told me to do other things. I think the hardest thing he did was when he forced me to use my right hand – I was born left handed. And at 16, when I was so sure of my decission to take up fine arts, he put me to a nursing school.

I was caught in the middle trying to keep my balance early on: between my encouraging, nourishing, consenting mother and my highly critical, discouraging, tormenting father.

I never had formal education in the arts. The gift is ingrained, I was born with the passion, not even my father was able to control it from florishing. So in my room, close doors, alone, I had my sketching session as a kid. It was lonely. There was only one person I would seek every time I finish a piece: my mother. Her sincere appreciation of my works nourished me to keep going. But I have to admit all these years, I seek for the approval of my father which he never gave. He died in 2008, and I thought I’m free now, I always was!

“The mind and the heart and the soul, like the birds, are meant to soar, set it free. Allow your spirit to fly!”

I walk fast many more group of young kids on drawing sessions while I brouse through the paintings on the walls that flood me with mulititude of thoughts from the past, present and future. Nothing has changed in me much, I still am the kid and art is still a solitary life for me and perhaps I would spend it that way for the rest of my life. I have come to terms with myself and solitude has become a bliss.

I, too, am still that kid who would seek my mother’s appreciation everytime I finish an art piece to get her nod and nourishing words of encouragement for me to go on. Only now I seek that appreciation from people who would chance upon my works, like my mother’s friend in the store she would show my drawings of flowers as a kid.

I still am that kid who fear the criticism of my father that made me rip many pages of my sketches, and toss away many works unfinished. Deep in my heart, I have to admit I still seek for his approval that he was so selfish to give.

I see my father’s image in people who thought my works are insignificant, I find courage in people who tell me otherwise. I still am struggling to find that balance from this opposing forces.

Deep inside this heart, ingrained, is a gift that I’m entrusted to nurture alone, close doors, away from people. I remain that waif inside my room as a child connecting senseless dots and lines to create images hoping that people would find them significant, so I could finally find my grown up version of an art institute, my home, your heart.

and like a desolate soul a lonely waif

I await for you to find me.

May your travels not take you long,

Come fast and love me ~

“Waif” oil on canvas 18×18 by : Jeques B. Jamora

My Contribution To The Future

My eldest sister, Maritez, called me the previous day asking me to write a valedictory address for her second child, Gigi, who will be graduating Valedictorian from grade school. It was such a great moment for me. Suddenly I was a proud uncle, I believe she feels double the joy and pride I felt. Hearing my nephews’ and nieces’ accomplishments and achievements are always inspiring. It feels like I’m showered with so much positive energies, and I feel a certain feeling of high every time.

And then, I begun the composition of the speech in my mind that brought me back to the sweet memories of my early education from elementary days. It all became fresh again. All the elements came back, and I was there when it happened and the speech I wrote should have been the message I told my classmates back then, only I was not the valedictorian.

My Graduation: My Contribution To The Future

A Valedictory Address : Angelie Jamora Escrupulo

 

I arrive today to this moment, standing facing a new frontier. Before this moment pass me by, let me take each detail, each piece of memories, each body of thoughts, the knowledge, the wisdom, the important life’s lessons, all the gifts and blessings that this moment is giving me so I could take them with me to my travel to the future. 

My dear classmates, are you taking the memories like me?

Do you still remember the first time we stepped to the grounds of this school, the Elementary School we will forever carry wherever the future takes us from here. Did you keep our shared laughters? The laughter forever sweet in our memories. Engrave them in your hearts, they are the laughter so pure we could always go back whenever we face the bitter taste of life that we are sure to stumble upon as we face the consequences of growing. Value the friendship we built here, they hold the purest elements of camaraderie and partnership that we need as we befriend the world.

Feel the comfort of the chairs where you are seated now, the floor where your feet are rested, breath the air, the scent of our dear school ~ 

If you could hold the hands of our classmates beside you, feel that gentle yet strong grip .  .  .  . 

(Note : Invite everybody at this point to hold hands and please allow some time for seatmates to enjoy the moment)

The memory of their grips will remind us that we will be forever safe wherever our futures would take us when we leave this grounds and get out of the gates of this campus that will forever hold the moments when we took our baby steps taking in the knowledge that helped form the young muscles of our minds so we would be ready.

Listen to the sounds of triumph that we all hear at this moment.

Capture all the elements that we could possibly get from here -

The scents of our notepads and erasers, of our bags, of the pencils and scented pens, when we were just learning to form the first letters, write our first words and draw our first flowers.

The many rains that showered us in our way to school and back home, and its sound as the rainfalls hit the roof of our classroom when we were just learning to count and pronounce our ABC’s

The sunlights that lit our faces, the sunshine that’s forever bright in our memories, and will forever remind us of the first exercise and dance steps we learn from our PE.

The feel of our desk, the colors of our classroom, the taste of the hundred snacks we shared.

Memorize the faces that helped pave the way for us to arrive to this victory, that made our first triumphs possible :

Our parents ~ God’s angels that built our homes and sent us to school.

Our families that supported us so we learn the basic lessons of how it is to stand and to take steps in our first walk in our journeys with life.

Our classmates and friends, who made us feel for the first time that we belong outside our homes in the safety of their company.

Our dear Teachers, our second parents in school, who fed us with all the knowledge every step of the way, from kindergarten, to grade one, to grade six, and now that this journey is about to end, as we are about to take a leap to next stage. We fear not because we are ready, they prepared us for this, to face the many battles we will face as we step to the roads to our future. Remember their voices that equipt us with the weapons and armour, these are the voices that will remind us of the power of knowledge they ingrained our young minds.  

Remember our dear Principal, who helped us build our backbones in education, wherever the paths of the academe will take us, we would always trace back our beginnings from here. We should always be grateful to our principal for designing and sending us the most basic and complete, yet non-complicated map so we would not get lost no matter how blurry the visibilities of the terrains  in the forest, and deserts, and jungles, and ocean, and prairies, and mountains, and skyscrapers of the cities of whatever profession that we will fly in our pursuits for knowledge to make the difference and make our corners of the world a better place to live.

We hold in our minds that map and if we uphold what we have learned, we will be sure to reach our destinations safe.

Remember that our parents, our teachers, our principal are once like you and I, too. They have arrived to where they are right now, and we their children, their pupils and the knowledge that they nourished us are their contribution to the the future they only thought about when they were our age dreaming about this very moment where we are now. Our triumphs and our achievements are their victories, too.

Let us thank them with our prayers, may our little voices would reach God’s ears to bless them. Let us pay them tribute and pass on their kindness by becoming the best versions of ourselves that they wanted all of us to become, nothing less. Wherever our journeys will take us, we will always trace our roots in this grounds, we are always anchored in their arms, in their hearts. Like kites we are safe in our flights because our strings are in the safety of their caring hands.

Let me read to you a poem written by my uncle, let this poem be my message to everybody who once were children, too. 

Child Once, Too

Let the child run free, uphills or down plains

Like a gazelle that gallops in prairies.

Let him swim in lakes, bathe in rains

And coquette like the mystical fairies.

Censor him not for he is free from stains

Trust not the filthy mind of the gentries.

Free the child from the restraining chains

And from the customs’ narrow bounderies.

Let him be for his generations’ gains ~

Allow the children to weave their stories.

 

And now, as we celebrate this milestones in our young life, let us celebrate this moment with grateful hearts. Our graduation today is our contribution to the future – from the seeds that we are now, will spring bright citizens of our country that will help sustain and make the difference. We will be taking different highways from this little road, we will explore the wide skies from this runway as we take off, we will reach distant shores as we leave this harbour of our elementary school as proud graduates ready to help build the future for the generations to come. 

For our friends, until we meet again.

For our guest of honor, thank you for the inspiration, may our little victory will serve as an inspiration for you, too, that you could take and share the next time you are invited to speak for a graduation ceremony.

For our Teachers and Principal, this is not goodbye, this is just asking your permission, and for your blessings as we take off – please wish us well.

For our parents and family, we offer to you our first accomplishment of the many triumphs and honors we will bring home from now.

For my dear classmates, let us open our minds and our hearts for growth. The future promises unlimited possibilities that are in our hands and are for us to seize and to hold. Always take the bright routes to the future, when the roads are seem dark in some days, take refuge and find the guidance of the little lamp post of the memories from this moment and we will never  get lost.

Let us thank God for this moment. Let us thank Him for all the people, the extension of His love, His angels that He sent to make sure all that we have now and our future will happen. It is written.

And when we reach our destinations please let us not forget to look back and send signals to our dear school, that we have reached our destinations and that we have arrived.

 

While You Are Away

Suddenly, a dike that held the ideas I searched for more than a year now, just burst open and flooded me with inspirations I was caught by the current of the gentle streams, and found myself stranded in front my easel painting again.

(”Our Eden” Oil On Canvas 24X30 By: Jeques B. Jamora, 022709)

I stopped painting in November, 2007. That was when my father was hospitalized for the last and the longest time before he died in January, 2008.  My painting with the working title,”Pending Life,” is still unfinished and I decided to just leave it that way. When I went home to the Philippines for his funeral, I have planned in my head that when I return to Chicago, I will continue where I have left off but things didn’t turn out easy for me. There was a long drought of ideas, and I was just demotivated returning in front my easel.

I came back with a heap of image materials I collected from home I planned to use for my paintings, but I let them sleep in my computer. It was a year of dormancy, of distance from my arts, but I have written rich poetry and prose. The leave of absence of one passion, the working season for the other.

And then it returned, images suddenly haunt me. I tried to capture them in words at first mistaking them for poetry but they are so vivid they are tangible, I can almost touch the colors. Winter was the season of courtship with the ideas. One by one I befriend them, I tried to capture the hue, the contrasts, the idea, the images that formed in the canvas of my imagination and I listened to what it is telling me.

And then came the title, WHILE YOU ARE AWAY: Memories From Home. This is a collection of painting ideas I conceived since I was a kid, but didn’t have the resources to put them on canvas. The collection is the union of the rich ideas from childhood with my present state of mind. They use to be just dreams, and time had given me power to give them forms and shapes and colors.

This is my journey, a walk back to my art path I strayed many times.

This is the new beginning, my new frontier to my passion that appears to be new, but the road is strangely familiar like I have been here before, in my dreams, as a lost young artist, before you found me.

Have I finally stepped into our eden that I created long ago?  

For us ~

While you are away.

200 Picks From My Fecund Heart

Jeques’s  Web Nook, the corner that opens my heart to the public for reading and viewing is 1 year and a half today. And to celebrate this landmark to my writing life is my 200th post.

I lost count of the number of poetry I posted but it’s over 200.

My favorite remains to be the sonnet poem I wrote: A Walk Around The Oval

 

Once more I walk the oval track today,
And ponder yet again, “What is my role?”
Am I just making circles every day
In life’s arena, like an errant soul?
I walk around the never ending trail:
A fallen leaf caught in a swirling stream;
Or like an army, ever locked in drill.
I am engrossed and walk in my own dream.
Some strangers share my lane but not my muse.
You’re far, and yet, our thoughts are much the same;
I’m not alone then in the road I choose;
Beyond the oval someone shares my lane.

                    In you my lonesome soul finds home to stay,
                    For in my heart you’re near, you’re here with me.

 

This poem tells so much of myself, the loner that I am, the waif who is at peace with his solitude, forever contemplating his role in this life, ever hopeful finding that one person to share his thoughts, his soul, the other half of his tenacious heart.

I can not be in this life for no reason, there must be something in each moment that I have to take in as I breath, and there must something in me that I could offer as I exhale my soul in anything that I do. Perhaps  my poetry, my arts, my thoughts, my memories, the landscape of my mind, the language of my heart, the sweetest juice of my soul is my cotribution that I willingly offer, hoping that somebody would take and breath them into their hearts.

It’s been 200 posts of fresh picks from my fecund heart in many different forms. It is amazing how my web nook became not only a corner for me to display my works, but it had also become my working table to untangle my thoughts, to disect my heart, to trace the map of the alianated corners of my mind, to lay my soul on that table and to try to understand for myself the language that it wanted to speak.

I have told you about the seasons and how they affect me, the country where I came and I call home, about my family, about my dreams.

I shared with you my journeys, my childhood, why I write, the books I read, my artworks, photographs, some produce of my expirements with the lenses.

I laid open my heart writing about love, of fantasied romance, of heartbreaks, of failures and defeats and rejections, of rising, of bouncing back, and of triumphs.

I told you stories about friends, about a singer I admire, about my pets, about my plants and bonsai, about the space I live and its corners.

I wrote about my pen, the paper, the roads, the garden, the pond and it’s inhabitants, I brought you to the places I traveled, about my job, my wishes, and dreams.

I have revealed to you few of my secrets,

I have walked in your presence naked, for in all the 200 posts that I placed here, I wrote them with so much honesty and they are my truth. 

After 200 posts, I thought I still have so much to tell, I still have a lot in my notebooks that I have not shared, there are still many thoughts inside my head nugging me to give them life in writing, I still have heap of drafts that need to be finished,  my heart streams hasn’t ceased flowing and each drop are stories, and poetry and artworks that is mine to offer.

There are still secrets I keep in my heart, and I know time would make me reveal them.

There are still so much joy and sorrows, and mirths to look forward to.

The seasons will continue their cycles.

I still view life, like a child with his nose pressed up against the window watching the world with wide-eyed wonder of a grown up tyke. 

Their are places I still have to travel and see, awaiting like blank canvas beaconing for my brush strokes to give them colors and tangible forms.

Like a clean slate and pristine white pages longing for the ink from my heart that would bring them to life

And give them wings to fly like birds to find their homes to your hearts.

Thank you for reading.

I wish you well.

 

~ Jeques