process

Here's an image I'm working on for a possible story. Also some poems generated from this image. The way I work on a new story sometimes follows this route. I write down an image, poem the mc's emotions, mull over it, and when the time's right, the story will come.


Leaving the Country
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

Behind the desk, a smooth-faced man smiles and nods his head. He bares his teeth in a grin and accepts paper money hidden between crinkly pages of bond paper. Everyone knows his secret, but it doesn’t make him any less businesslike.

He takes the papers, slides them into a drawer in one smooth movement. An adept-- it’s easy to believe he is innocent and has no knowledge of the bills smoothened out by a flat iron so they appear fresh from the bank.

It’s a simple matter to attach a seal to the end of a wooden stamp. It doesn’t take much effort to lift the stamp, press it into the inkpad and make an indention on the sheet of paper lying in front of him.

He nods his head, stands up at the same time you do. He reaches out grasps your hand in his.

Congratulations, he says. I wish you all success.

And you feel you deserve the words after all the months of chasing after bureaucrats.

You take the paper. You feel its weight. So light, and yet so heavy.

Don’t lose it, the man admonishes.

And you know you won’t because this paper has cost you sweat and tears. Days of scrimping and saving in order to gather together what amounts to a small treasure.

Only a matter of time now, you tell yourself.


You leave the room, and in your mind you are already leaving the country. You are leaving behind this stench of sweat and blood, this memory of rotting consciences and murdered ideals.


Leaving the Country


Leave behind this
dust, this
wretched--

this earth stained
with blood,
and

memory.


Leave.
Leave this
cradle of dreams

broken, torn from
hands wrinkled,
lined,

trembling,
helpless against
an invincible foe.

Release

memories
of winds
in mango season

waves
breaking on
Mindanao’s southern quay


rice
planted--harvested
by eager hands

chants
sang full-bodied
on the crossing.

Don’t look back
in case
regret

tugs
holds you
shakes your resolve

Leave
Leave this
Leave this memory

This
Sky bitter
With indentions of


Land
Torn from
Hands grown weary

of fighting for a place to call your own


And Still

I may have left behind
Mountain and hill, sea and sky
But I carry with me the scent of mangoes
Ripening under a summer sun

the memory of palm leaves rustling
in an afternoon breeze
while the sun transforms the sea
awash with debris into glory

I carry these with me
snapshots of a life I had

No matter where I go
I still call myself Filipino.