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Inspired by an old class picture posted on Facebook by a high school classmate, I wrote the poem, “Looking Old, Feeling Good” for the March 16 issue of FilAmMegascene. That classmate, Dr. Apollo M. Arenas, was inspired to write the reply below.
I read a friend’s poem,
about a sepia picture.
High school kids behind standing.
Young.
Smiling.
Teachers in front sitting.
Old.
Smiling.
Inside the classroom,
not picture perfect.
The young
sitting down.
No smiles,
only shaking knees.
The old standing up.
No smiles,
only stern voices.
Your poem
it brought back
those days.
Put the colors
on the sepia.
That pretty woman
with exposed knees.
No, never saw
those knees.
Her eyes,
even less so.
I dared not gaze back
into them.
I may turn into
stone. In fear.
But her voice
booms on.
Always scolding.
Always angry
for every little
mistake we made.
We gave her
a steady supply.
Now I wish to see
those knees.
So before them
I could bend mine,
to thank her.
For being mean.
Really.
That man in the
Polo-Barong.
He plucked me
away from
the tough boy classes,
the garden plots
where I grew
dead vegetables,
sickly boy that I was.
Maybe he saved me
from dying.
Made me work
in his office.
Arranging the pens
he kept twirling.
That amiable and
affable lady.
Maybe she was,
to You. Only.
Because You always
spelled correctly.
Knew where to put:
commas, periods,
colons and semicolons.
But to us. Me.
Spelling bee that
could not buzz,
She was Grammar Nazi.
Purely.
Maybe secretly
I loved her.
Twist of fate.
The Grammar Nazi
lives in me.
Ah, the Besides Man.
The Granary God.
I hated you.
Played the biggest joke
on the sickly boy,
least athletic boy
made sports editor.
Poems, essays,
short stories.
I wrote them all.
The best ever written.
Threw them all
in the trash.
Thought they
belonged there.
If you can read me now.
Ah, you’d do
the same.
Redundant.
I hated you.
Your poem.
Made alive again
that sweet demure
girl with the
handkerchief
which all boys
wished we were.
Oh! to rub against
her cheeks and lips.
Oh! to hear her
breathe again.
That boy who in line
always stood
in front of me,
he stayed there,
in front:
At work
At home
Anywhere.
He grew as tall
as any man.
That bespectacled friend,
our Clark Kent.
Away from sight
took off
his dark-rimmed glasses
and took to the sky.
We never knew
he was
Superman.
Literally.
Discuss.
Regal lady,
too tall for me.
All the tall boys
coveted her.
Maybe she married
a dwarf
then lived happily
ever after.
Now, that
well-mannered
well-scrubbed boy.
He’s old now
older than the old people
in that photo.
He still has not
stopped talking.
“Gracias y adios”
Sorry, Mrs. Uytiepo.
Those are all the Spanish
I remember from you.