The Quasi-Plagiarist: On Words, the Creation

Beauty is bound always with the act of hostility—the world in one sweep of His word, poetry in the utter defeat of language, the birth of a masterpiece in the triumph of color against canvas. From a window in his cloistered room, he could see the sky, scarred by all eyes who watch over its malady. The world is a sea—as blue as the city that never sleeps, as blue as the hills slumbering nearby. These scenes are weary to him—save the restless sky, spouse of the angry ocean, who travels

on its head the depths of the night. You once sat beside me and it calmed the angry waves of my heart, conquered by your open offer of peace. Almost was I shattered by your brief gestures: the way you silently waited for your bus, the longing in your eyes for a chance to have somewhere to finally go home to. My mind was blank, except these thoughts—

I would like to go home with you. I would like nearness without the element of astonishment, because the doors to my happiness are shut and words fail me in your presence. I would like to sleep in the folds of your eyes, wake up as a speck of dust nestled in your shoulder, or in your barren hand—

that I would struggle to tame. I wanted—to speak—the poetry of your silence—your unblemished quiet—your innocence, your own of colony of beauty that does not need, that does not want anything else.

Man is created to tame all creation: the monsters of the ocean, the winged of the sky, and all beasts that walk the earth. He colonized everything with his words, his empire founded on the system of names: you are fish, you are eagles.

To forget Gauguin by tearing an ear is sheer madness. But then how do you draw a line between the mundane and the meaningful? How do you tear a part of you from the persistence of memory and history?

I remembered you again on my way home. You are the core of the earth, the blood that runs through the veins of everything: from the roots of the cities, the steel towers nearby, the rich fibers that are woven into the night, the lavishness of my own longing.

Amidst chaos, like these lines, we both desire order, meaning. We are tasked to grant purpose to the young malevolence of the earth. We are tamed so we could in turn tame its wildness, and ultimately, its elusive beauty. There are some of us who attempt this through a poem, a painting. And how unforgiving the penalty, how melancholy the punishment, should we fail in this duty, this work of art, this need.

There are moments—when I want to roam the sky—an eagle—alive—in the first cries of its morning.

(This is translated from the original Filipino by Manech. This is also the first part of a series of blog post translations by this author. Read the introduction to this project here.)