Kaaro

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

I AM trying to keep the issue of cutting trees as far away from its political undertones as possible. Similarly, my friends who are running for public office in 2016 who are supposed to have something to say to this issue have remained silent. I know that the election is very near, and they are steering away from articulating their positions, for or against. I understand the silence. They cannot afford to jeopardize political alliances, they cannot alienate strategic support for their candidacies, they cannot gamble their political survival for anything that cannot be seen, like the air we breathe.

And why should I expect my friends to behave otherwise? After all, they are political players, in a season where friendship must exist at a deeper corner in one’s heart, where understanding is not only possible, but fully given.

Advocacies are personal. They take your full heart. It is a jealous lover. It is inclusive, and also exclusive. But the personal is also political. It takes on a more political dimension as it able to provide alternative paradigms and ways of living, and slowly changes the existing order of our socio-economic and political life. It is too much to ask friends, who are part of the ruling elites, to give up their own lives.

Even the most powerful country behaves the same way. Henry Kissinger has aptly put it, “America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests.” And so it is in politics, even when, you are friends.

 

KAARO

Walay anengneng ko’d matam

impilit toy limmo-ob ed saray gili-gilig na bitukak

tinurok toy bislak tan inkalot to ed apoy

 

Pakalikas ko isubo mo ak lad sangim

kaiba ra’y “hotdog”, ag aluton “steak”

tan kapanpusuak ya dala na ugugaw ed Gaza

 

“Kaaro ta ka,” kuwan mo,

“ag ta ka kanen.”

 

Balet inupot mo la’y tamurok

say pusok man-giwgiw ed limam

tan agko la na-almo’y kamareruak.

 

 

English translation : FRIEND

 

something in your eyes

forced itself to the sides of my intestines

pierced it with a stick, and roasted it into the fire

 

I have the feeling I will be thrust in your mouth

like all the hotdogs, half-done steaks

and the fresh blood of the children of Gaza

 

“You are my friend” you said,

“and I will never eat you”

 

But I have lost seven of my fingers

my heart quivers in your hands

and I have to find my soul.

 

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

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