Things Empty
~
Not known, unborn,
Formless ~
Devoid of color ~
Nameless
Shape, undifferentiated;
Meaning, undefined.
Muted thoughts,
Page worthless
Awaiting, searching
Orphaned words
In pariah.
Things empty
Empty
Empty
Emptiness limns
This heart
This hollow chamber
Awaiting to be filled.
Til something in the hollow
Begun to pound
In genial thumps
Of dreams, in black and white
Conceived
In traces of ambiguous outlines
Forming silhouettes
Of things to come
To fill
Things empty
Empty
Empty
Emptiness enfolds
Each tiny drop of hope
Building up to brim, in time.
The progress of time I befriend ~
Each speck in the passage
I give a name
As details unfolds
Now known, alive
In ripe colors
Shapes defined, forms in certainty.
Words finding voice
Coming home
To the hearth of the longing page
Ending my moments of pariah
Waif no more
And learned.
All the elements in the passage,
Everything about myself
I accepted
Loving things empty
Empty
Empty
Emptiness begets fresh slate
And what’s next.
Now that excites me.
~
—
Footnotes:
I’m half through 2010. The first half of the year was a whirlpool of events for me with things happening fast-paced. In hindsight:
January, 2010 – preparations for my second home-coming which I started to plan in 2008 during my unplanned vacation for my father’s funeral. Ticket booking, pasalubong, sketching itineraries, and above that was submitting my resume to Hospitals I intend to get employment in my return from my grand two months vacation. And then the doubts from getting few calls considering my too long absence before I would be available for work. But I was certain of my priority – I’m going for my vacation, period.
February, 2010 – I didn’t renew my contract with my petitioner/former employer, and submitted my resignation in spite the uncertainty of my job hunting which I temporarily put on hold. February 7 was my last day at work. February 9 was my flight to the Philippines to catch up for valentines day which was part of my itinerary for a surprise Valentines date with my mother.
I only have one thought in mind: “Jump and the net will appear.” I’ve always been a risk taker, at 37 I still am. I just love the adrenaline rush that comes with it.
February to March, 2010 – Vacation, Reunions, Tourist to my own country, sweet moments with my nephews and nieces, memorable time with mamang, bonding with my siblings. Name it, I did everything! I totally shut myself from worries. I lived the moment. I did.
March 16, 2010 – I received an email from the Talent Acquisition manager of the hospital I am currently working, inviting me to submit my resume for possible employment. I did and put a note: The applicant is currently on vacation to his country until April 2, 2010. He will be available for interview after April 5, 2010.
April 2, 2010 – Flight back to Chicago – satiated from my vacation. It is something I did in life that I felt a certain fulfillment and there was nothing left undone from my plan. No single stone unturned, no unfinished business. I emtied myself, for it is only by letting go of our grips for something that we could open our palms and accept things new. I’m just so ready for things to come, like a fresh slate ready for new marks to form in my slab.
April 5, 2010 – I receieved a call from the same person who sent me the email and had an instant interview over the phone. After passing some series of questions, I was recommended to meet with the Chief Clinical Officer for a personal interview the next day. I missed this process of hiring, I’m enthused to go through the process. The interview went well and my application was forwarded to the next phase: Panel interview with a team to gauge if I would fit in to organization. I was found to fit the requirements for the job by the team of 5 during the interview and went further through the hiring process – it was a long process, but I found it fulfilling in the end and financially rewarding, too.
The company I’m working now belongs to the Fortune’s top 500, and was awarded by the renowned Fortune Magazine in 2009 as the most admired company.
May 10, 2010 – Start of my Orientation/Training. You thought my employment was secured? I also thought, and then an unannounced examination like a mini-NCLEX that could either make or break my present status with the company. Call it stress to the highest level. I passed the test and hurdled the last barrier between me and the company, now I feel like I totally belong.
It’s adjustment since. I never felt vulnerable for a very long time like this. It’s like growing new skin, like taking new form from nothingness, like embracing each tiny drop of learning from every moment – it is good to be here at this time – what surprised me most is knowing myself to be still receptive to things new like a raw material that could still be molded to my best form.
The first half of the year taught me a major lesson: to learn to love things empty. For at the end of the day it’s really upto us what we would become as we evolve from the new start point no matter which part of life we already are. This is mine.
I wish you well.
~ Jeques, 2010. From his Traveler’s Soliloquies poetry collection.
Deciphered
—–
Happy Mother’s Day to Mamang, my Sisters and all the mothers in the world!
For all the lines that I have written,
And every word that I have spoken,
A piece of me is taken.
For every time I send my greetings,
It is my heart that I am sending.
—–
Jeques, 2010. From his “Traveler’s Soliloquies” poetry collection.
Invaluable
Thoughts race past cobblestones.
Shadow trails behind
Unnoticed
In the green of day,
Rapture-tinged with blooms.
Gloom conceded.
The once empty lamp post
Now lighted.
Images popped
And dissolved in the air ~
Faces passed me by swiftly ~
Acquaintances sealed loosely
With fluffy smile,
Unsure hellos
And unsaid goodbyes.
There were no street lamps
To mark those encounters
(Forgotten)
Like the dandelions’
Worthless beauty
Here now in brilliant yellow
Tomorrow but fluffy seeds
Blown by the winds
To uncertainty grounds
That may welcome
Or uproot them as weeds.
Walking past cobblestones of life,
I found you in the corner
Of the road I travel
And took a single fluffy seed
Of smile from your fleeting presence
And planted it in the garden
Of my heart
Where there’s no wind
To blow your memories away,
For you are priceless.
You are the lamp
That brought light
To the once empty post
That casted shadows
In the corner of the road
I walked every day.
For others,
You are but a dandelion.
For me,
You are an invaluable
Bloom.
“Weeds are flowers too, once you get to know them.”
~ A. A. Milne
—
Jeques, 2010. From his “Traveler’s Soliloquies poetry collection
Caught in the Moment

"Gift of Home, The White Bell" pen and pencil on paper made some mornings during my recent vacation. Jeques, 2010

"Gift of Home: The White Bell," pen and pencil on paper of the white bell in bloom I wanted to take back to chicago, but I can't, so I drew it cpative on paper to take the gift with me anywhere in the world. Jeques, 2010
—–
Jeques, 2010. From his Traveler’s Soliloquies poetry collection.
New York: What You Mean To Me
The places we visit are like peepholes we take a peek, revealing parts of a bigger picture of the journeys we take. This is what New York showed me. I visited the place for the first time last year, but it felt like I was there forever.
Land of childhood dreams
Hedged in by enormous seas
Damselfly alights
Have you ever had thought so strong it follows you all through life? I have. It is incessant and tarry as the waves to the shore that come, and go, and come back in erratic intensity of currents taking me back, up, down and forth.
Years back, I wrote this haiku piece included in my Filipino Immigration collection and New York, I have to confess, was the place in mind when I wrote it. I had a strong feeling even then, though I didn’t know exactly when, that one day I’m going alight on to its grounds like the damselfly and walk its streets where my dream arrived ahead of me. For somebody who lived in the other side of the world, it was a dream that for years I half-believed, but after January 17, 2009, with all my heart, I now do.
I first saw America in a postcard, in a picture of a snowy Time Square, New York and visited the place countless times in my thoughts. I’m not sure who owned that card, or who sent it to whom and from where, but I think of it now an invitation sent by my fate from the future to come to a place. An enticement I ignored, or perhaps I turned down at some point doubting possibilities, but the invitation ever haunting.
Years after, I arrived in Chicago and saw snow for the first time. I walked the streets in many snowy days, and my thought of the christmas card would return, unreeling in waves and waves of flashback like an old film but the picture always incomplete, not until last year, when fate put me exactly in that old picture of the postcard I once viewed as a child. My dream and I converged in Time Square where all the elements conspired, and felt the snow the way the child thought it should feel melting on my face when I arrive to answer that long time invitation.
I really thought my many years of incessant thoughts of New York ended when I finally answered its invitation. But I fear, No! I left many stones unturned with my brief weekend visit last year that continue to frequent my reveries, courting me with new angles of possibility. This is what New York mean to me now. For many years, it’s something impossible and far away, and when I reached to touch its grounds, it remained mystical and distant. I felt ignored during my visit. I even wonder it noticed my presence. Perhaps it’s my fault for ignoring the invitation too long that fate have forgotten about the christmas card and didn’t recognize me when I finally stepped into the picture to answer its long time invitation.
I love New York
But it didn’t love me back
A love that endured
Years of dreaming
And wake up
To walk its streets
For fleeting moment
And temporary bliss
That dissolves
With its rushing time.
I chased you
In the fast lanes
Of my recurring dreams.
I run after your affection
In the weekend
I spent with you,
Unnoticed.
I love New York
But it didn’t love me back.
I contented myself
With passing glances
A vagabond
A tourist
A spectator
A stranger
A passerby
An audience
Until the curtains dropped
And the show ended
When day light shied away
From your night lights.
But that’s when I start to dream,
Again, where you become real.
Only in dreams
That I belong to you
And when I trully walk your streets
And leave marks
Of my footsteps
In your heart.
Tomorrow,
When you wake up,
I hope you recognize
My footprints
Among the many vagabond
That walked the paths
That meet in the intersection
Where dreams alight
And don’t dissolve
With the fumes
Of your heavy traffic.
Only then that my dream
Would really come alive.
New York is one of the places I visited that intrigued me to fathom its relevance to my journey. It is like a hole in a lock where a key would fit one day awaiting to be turned to reveal me many things behind the shut door. I doubt the possibilities no more when fate put me in that picture and walked the streets of the postcard of long ago that gave me the preview of what was to come and in fleeting moments became a surreal reality that weekend. I know I need to come back to complete the story and when I do, I would not leave a single stone unturned.
Our dreams may reside in many different places. Places that would speak to us in many different languages, giving us messages, revealing to us secret codes that would help decipher the mysteries of our journeys. I wish my pictures would work like the old postcard did to me and reach the eyes and hearts of dreamers to invite, to entice and reassure that dreams still come alive if we believe. And I hope you would answer that invitation soon.
Don’t make your dreams wait too long.
Jeques at Stairway to heaven. Time Square, New York, January 2009
Better Days
We’ve seen better days,
But are now diffused
In colors, in lights
With the passing of time
As it nears twilight.
I watch waves of parting
As the sun sets,
Recalling, clinging
Til the delicate fibers
Of better days shared
I held on so long
Slip away.
Better days hover
In places we’ve been
And things we’ve done.
I sigh driving around roads,
Enmeshed in the gossamer
Of memories we left behind
When time knows no bounds
And deadlines.
Joyous raptures
I spend in retrospection
Like letters sent from the past
I read too late.
We had such moment
Of better days,
But wasted
To the ever changing landscapes
We throw ourselves off
Unguarded,
Cascading like waterfalls
Lost in endless gorges
Never to return,
Flooding ravines
With tears.
Trickling
Streaming
Flowing
Surrendering to the ebbs
Of destiny
That would empty
Us to the reservoir of fate
That would bring our union
To the same end
At the right time
Where dawn of endless lights
And lasting colors
Of better days
Await.
—–
Jeques, 2009. From his poetry collection, “A Traveler’s Soliloquies”
Home Sick In Autumn
What is there left to write,
When my sense of home has faded.
Fallen souvenirs pirouette in the air ~
Leaves dancing downwards ~ like specter.
The ink must wait, and rest til winter is over
(My spirit retires to quiescent under the covers)
Things freeze like the trees, even the lake dozes.
As wakeful hours become less and less,
Mind loses its bluntness,
The page speechless.
Distance drained my veins bloodless
Even the pulse of my pen ceases.
I’m losing grip of the eidolon of home,
It’s warmth I no longer recall.
Like the trees losing their leaves to autumn,
The hands of memories that used to lift me,
For a time, fail to save my spirit to fall.
I let the cruel wanton winds to take me;
I trust the higher will would be kind.
I write my thoughts in the palms of the season,
I trust them to come back in time.
When my sense of home fills me up again;
When revenant of home,
Like eidolon,
Returns.
—
Jeques, 2009. From his “A Traveler’s Soliloquies” poetry collection.
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