A scented reminder

By Virginia J. Pasalo

THE dawn smells of sampaguita. I smell it even when I imagine it. My childhood is full of sampaguita stories. They remind me of my colorful childhood. I remember Auntie Intay who woke me up early at dawn to pick the flowers along the old highway and put them in a vase in the altar where she prayed silently. I remember picking them at the foot of narra, damortis and fire trees, at the break of dawn, while the rest of the world slept.

I think sampaguita with my mother’s name, Romana Jasmin. There are many flowers in the front yard, but Nanay was especially fond of the kampupot and the yellow santan. I remember, she would turn around the vines to form rings until they become a big cluster of blooms, and after she had done this, I would straighten them up to climb the trellis. We would do this ritual over the years. I miss my mother. I even miss our fights. I miss her terribly.

 

Scissors

I woke up
still drowsy from a dream
with my sister telling her son:
“if you can’t help it, use a condom”
and mom, overhearing her asked,
“what is it you wanted him to use?”
I was about to tell her
but my sister snatched the words,
“to use scissors, mother,
to cut his beard!”

she was alive, my mother!
and I felt her smile
she liked the answer

“Okay,” my mother replied,
“I forgot my cutter, may I borrow
the scissors to cut some flowers?”

she cut the blooms
of jasminum sambac
leaving only the clustered buds
she did not turn around,
but her hands swayed
and slashed through the breeze
to catch the kampupot
dropping to the ground

I smiled, at her back
a surprisingly straight back

leaving the scent of sampaguita
in her light footsteps, walking away
on a perfumed stairway
with the scissors that she bought

after a hard bargain
in the old public market, long ago

in Pozorrubio.

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