ShareThis
Yevgeny
Alexandrovich
Yevtushenko.
Such a tongue-twister.
Who’s he?
“He’s a Russian poet.”
And
Restituto
Ceña?
Who’s he?
“He’s a Filipino essayist.”
Do they know each other?
“No.”
One Saturday,
Cleaning up
Was imperative.
Old boxes
Were opened up,
To sort out
Books,
Pictures,
Notebooks,
Notes,
Diaries,
Etc.
It was boring
And the dust
Was suffocating.
Till a thin
Pocketbook of
Yevtushenko poems
Emerged from
The mess.
It isn’t mine, I knew.
Whose book is this?
The flyleaf says,
CEÑA ’67.
Between pages 38
And 39
Was a bus ticket
For a trip from
Cabanatuan
To Manila.
It cost two pesos
And fifteen centavos.
Unbelievable.
I never knew
Yevtushenko.
Gogol, Tolstoy,
Dostoevsky,
Solzhenitsyn,
Novelists all
Were my favorites.
I never really knew
Ceña…
He was my teacher
In high school lit.
Marbas, Sarmenta,
Tumangan, and even
Telesforo Mendoza
Were my favorites.
Ceña was different
He taught literature
And he loved words
And made us learn
Word power made easy.
Anachronistic,
Perspicacity,
Serendipity,
Etc.
Became living words
In our innocent world.
Ceña was different
He read aloud poems
Perched on a chair
On top of a table
In the classroom.
I don’t remember
Any of those poems.
Ceña IS different
I’m a senior citizen
And so is he.
When my high school
Friends and batch mates
Get together,
No matter when,
No matter where,
There he is.
Laughing,
Chatting,
Eating,
And boasting
He could down
Two dozen bottles
Of that saintly beer!
He posts this and that
On FB
To provoke
To poke fun
To tell the world
He’s alive
Writing his
Obra maestra
In a seaside cottage
Inside a corn field!
Thank you, Sir,
For the gift of
Presence
All these years!
Thank you, Sir,
For the gift of
Repartee
When Popoy and I
Propose to oppose
Your view
Of nouns and pronouns
Of men and women
Of loving and forgiving!