nameabledays Archive One

☞Downpour at Fontana

(Meditations on a Borrowed Weekend)

for my neighbors at Makati South Hills

1
What makes it so different
This angry outburst of weather
Among these rented casitas
On a leisurely weekend?

The couches are soft and cozy
The wives are cooking
The kids are at the pool in the water park
Laughing and shivering in the thunder

The husbands are setting up the dart board
Making fun of each other
The beer is cold, the finger-food sizzling
Spicing up the electric ether

The storm is so pretty among the acacias
Pelting the birds of paradise
Among the winding paths, shaking the azaleas
The banderas españolas

On the newly-green grass
At the end of summer

2
Only because my pockets are empty
And as if the weather cannot touch me
Is this weekend so lazy and opulent

What is happiness? What is joy
If nothing more than having
Everything, like a little boy’s toy,
But only for the moment?

What is knowing? What is having
If not owning the world—
Perhaps only in words—but words
Can never be the world except,

For instance, when one’s wealth
Is knowing that impecunious
Is another way of saying poor

And despite the inconvenience
It becomes pretty like this storm
Tossing the acacias?

3
What is there to know?
Who is looking at this tempest
Perhaps stirred by a butterfly wing
Fluttering in Argentina

This spin of the monsoon
Whipped by a whitecap in the Pacific
This tropical convergence zone
Of love and loss crackling

Like a hailstorm
In a frying pan of salt and oil
In the odor of garlic and spices
Precipitating

Into the easy conversation
Of a living room
In the plush enclave of Fontana?

4
Drenched children burst in
In their dripping towels and trunks
Their squeals drown the first
Squall and cloudburst of June

The world gathers
Around the yang chow rice
Myriad flavors waft
From the potluck repast

Brought together
From pantries stocked
With eternal love

Marne L. Kilates
June 27, 2006

My Extraordinary Neighbors

As indicated in its dedication, I wrote the poem above for my really extraordinary neighbors. They know how to enjoy themselves (in this life of work, traffic jams, and bickering politicians), they know how to make things special in ordinary time. I’d like to let you in on this fine, neighborly bunch. Ours is a neighborhood of (mostly) working people, where we make time for each other and each other’s families, and “for the boys.” The joke is that all ulam can become pulutan after 6 p.m. In the evening, a San Miguel Beer bottle cap is usually sent around to the houses of the small circle of willing friends, with the message for the maid that “Alam ni Kuya mo ang ibig sabihin niyan.” We used to be called by other neighbors, in half-jest and half-comment, the Bote Gang (Bottle Gang), for our continual after-hours instant beer parties. But our most senior member, Ed Mariano, complained of the epithet—the bottle was mainly to get us together and have good conversation, and we had and have worthwhile deeds and concerns for the small townhomes subdivision of some 140 units and families. Gathering for the bottle is not all we do. We clean the park, we raise funds for the chapel, we repainted it with our own hands, etc. So we deserved a better name. Yours truly came up with SODA (Social Drinkers Association). It was instantly approved and adopted.


Here is SODA on trip to Batangas, an instant overnight weekend outing similar to the one being talked about in the poem above. It was held at the newly constructed vacation house of couple Noel and Belle Sayson. Seated on the front row, left to right, are Alex Bondoc, Ed Mariano, Manny Peniera, Allen Villegas, Toti Santamaria, and Eric Marquez; Standing on second, Edmund Jocson, Dusty Santos, Yours Truly, Migi Santamaria, Boots Molina, Joey Sasyon (partly hidden), and Agnes Santos; At last row, Maxine, Noel and Belle Sayson, a guest, Jean Peniera Acel and Angelo Villegas (partly hidden), Meday Santamaria, Enchie Marquez, and Chit Jocson.


And here are some more. Valentines’ or Lent, the gang’s all there and helping out making it a nice time for families and kids. Another weekend (FROM TOP LEFT OF THIS VIGNETTE) was a "fishing expedition" at Meday's parents' fishponds in Valenzuela City. All the fishing, and a sumptuous seafood-dominated lunch followed. The hook and line, or rod and reel, is a serious business, from the faces lone of Homeowners' Association president Allen Villegas, assisted by a similary intent Eric Marquez, as the two join hands educating Allen's son, Angelo, on the habits of tilapia or bangus. My partner Pam Banez & Edmund Jocson are more patient enlightenting Vince Santos, PJ Jocson, Migi Santamaria & Celine Santos. Pam herself hooked two or three wriggling banugs which were promptly returned to their watery place. Perhaps at last year's end of Lent, that happy boy sure had the visual tool to search for Easter eggs; the kids themselves, this time with assiste from a professional emcee, run the show, with Macis Alkuino, Teptep Sancianco & Dianne Santos in charge; and, ah, Valentine's is a stricly red-letter day in Makati South Hills.