in baler where the sun shines and the waves visit
is where freedom bathes under the blue skies
in the seaside realm of surfing

simple hotels line the shore
where you can run to the beach fronts
after settling in little white rooms,
and in the blue water
wait tanned, youthful surfing instructors--
local boys of the province who've grown up
with the salt water as their playground.

get on your surfboard and
join the waters,
"mag-timing ka sa alon,"—
"wait for the waves", the instructors say
and lie down on your stomach on the surfboard,
and when you do get the waves you ride them fearlessly,
you are lifted, invincible,
by the hands of the philippine sea.

and if you don't surf,
the smooth sands are there,
calling you to lie around
under the seaside sun.

and when night falls
and the waves are reckless,
you can sit on the sand
with a bonfire and some drinks—
watch the stars
with the sound of the tides as your music
and do not fear;
for in the morning
the waves will come rushing
back to the shores of Balers
to give anyone freedom
as they always do.

It had been awhile since I made
my bed blanket print down.
The lines diced her torso like
veal bound with baler's twine.
I walked out shirtless, aimless
into the old night beneath
the frigid-stricken branches
refusing to sway. The pads
of my feet turned gravel
from the fresh asphalt the city
just laid beside me. The tar
lines that patched the gaps
glossy like kintsukuroi.
Where workers in ash and oil
gloves picked away at the new
earth two weeks beside me.
Too weak beside me,
too weak alone.
My movements were sparse
wading through the dry
swimming pool. My joints
were like a shed lock trying
different keys until one's
ridges matched enough to move.
Branches, no cars, just branches
like arteries pumping night,
but more like baler's twine.

Kalungkutang bumabalot,
Nooy kumukunot.
Nagkakamayang kilay,
Nakakainis na buhay.

Nag away kasi tayo,
Kaya mainit aking ulo.
Ito nga ba'y pang ilan?
Di ko na yata mabilang.

Pero kahit anong mangyari,
Di kita malimutan...

Sa pagkat akoy isang alon,
Ipagtulakan mo man, ikay babalikan.
Naiwan nating kahapon,
Ikay dalampasigan, hahalik-halikan.

Lagi **** sinasabi,
Alaala mo'y aking isantabi,
Lagi man tayong mgtalo,
Sa ngiti mo d kayang manalo.

Isang hakbang palayo,
Pabalik akoy tumatakbo.
Isang sigaw sa hangin,
Pambawi koy paglalambing.

Dahil kahit anong mangyari,
Di kita malimutan...

Sa pagkat akoy isang alon,
Ipagtulakan mo man, ikay babalikan.
Naiwan nating kahapon,
Ikay dalampasigan, hahalik-halikan.

She was very warm in bed except for her nose, which was more than cold, though not quite frozen. Her bear, who she had folded into her arms but as a prelude to pulling back the covers - no duvees here just scratchy blankets- she placed on her on the pillow. Jellikins was pink and not a proper bear for a nine year old. She'd been her bear since infancy, small and a bit grubby, and pink.
 
It was still quite dark, silent. She could see her dressing gown hanging on the door - just. There was a movement downstairs; her father making tea perhaps. This was his time of day, the early morning. For as long as she could remember he was up and often out when she woke. Even at Christmas, particularly at Christmas when she sought her mother's bed he was 'out', working or walking in the park . But here at the farm he was here, downstairs, and if she went down now he'd wrap her in a blanket or two and read to her until the light changed through the kitchen window on to the yard, a gradual blueness, then, if it was a clear day she'd watch the sun draw itself from the sea in a golden ball.
 
She loved it when he read, because he loved to read, and because he loved to read to her, holding her gently in his arms, she would drift off into her own thoughts. Being out with dogs on the cliff paths, the smell of the Christmas tree at home that her mother would decorate tonight, being on the train for six hours with picnicy food, game after game of Go and those strange  word puzzles her father would invent , then the cycle ride with the big downhill rush to Morfyn and the long long push up Rhiw hill in the twilight . . .
 
Later, after their first breakfast they'd go out into the frozen yard and let the dogs out. Into the old sheds with their simple wooden latches hand-smoothed requiring the barest touch to open; then **** and his mum bounding out, and the little dogs yapping and yapping. Next, to barn and with the knife she'd been trusted with, she waited for the bales to land at her feet, flying out of the darkness up high near the roof. Cutting the baler twine and stuffing it in her coat pocket she opened out the compressed straw ready for Blossom and her friends to munch and scrunch, **** and **** their way through their breakfast.
 
On a farm the opening and closing of gates was like a little ceremony. Always the same careful ordering of movement; you could only open this gate if you'd closed that . . . you always checked the tail of the chain was the whole way through the loop and secure.
 
Meanwhile proper morning had arrived: it had been dark, now it was light, properly morning time. She could move all ten beasts on her own, from the Plas field across the yard to the Stack and back again - four gates each way and never a slip.
 
She had read at school that the beasts spoke to each other on Chrismas Eve, at the moment of the birth, when this baby was born in the stable. Although she doubted this just a little – Who had actually heard them? Was there  a recording perhaps? She wondered what they would say to each other tonight. Surely they spoke to each other all the time. Well, the beasts she knew mooed and grunted constantly. Was it just that we could understand them when suddenly it became Christmas? And how long could they talk for? Just a few minutes, or the rest of the night until the sun rose? She imagined herself opening her bedroom window at midnight to listen to them in the stack yard. She would look up at the sparkly sky, a sky that was so awesome that she and her father would, on a clear night, go up the mountain before bed and stand at the very top to look at the immense upturned bowl of the heavens rising out of the sea on three sides. At home the sky was just a red glow, occasionally the moon rose through the trees in the park, but the stars seemed hardly indistinguishable from passing aeroplanes, only they twinkled and moved. You couldn’t see those fields of stars her father wondered at it here on the mountain, those distant constellations, stars beyond number and time, light years away. Beside which the thought of animals talking to each other for a few minutes at Christmas seemed entirely possible.

From La Union to Siargao,
our waves are one and shared.
From Baler to Biarritz,
there are no swells we'll miss.
From Aurora to Asturias,
there are no days without sun and sand.
From Catalunya to Catanduanes,
the nights are made of parties and rest.
From hanging bridge to the sunset bridge,
how wonderful it is to share this friendship.
From my east to your east,
may we be each other’s vacation and ease.
From your west to my best,
may you find me again, I’ll be waiting here.

Ash to ashes,
laughters to kisses.
Dust to dust,
returning is a must.

Ang awitin ng mga armas,
ang katahimikan ng kampana,
ang tinig ng mga bala,
ang kawalan ng himno ng misa.

Balikan mo ang kwento ng nayon,
bilhin mo ang bawat minuto at oras,
mag-baliktanaw sa kahapon at ngayon
nang ‘di ma-balewala ang bukas at wakas.

Ang himig ng mga nagliliparang pana,
bulong ng mga dasal at adhikain,
ang ungol ng mga sundalong sugatan,
bitbit ko sa aking kasal sa kanluranin.

Balikan mo ang kwento ng nayon,
bilhin mo ang bawat minuto at oras,
mag-baliktanaw sa kahapon at ngayon
nang ‘di ma-balewala ang bukas at wakas.

We were in the cemetery
Afternoon of June 29
It was his birthday
Another birthday without the celebrant

Mother placed yellow candles over him
And sunflowers over the grass
His favorite color

40 years of life
8 years gone
Or 8 years in another world
If you believe in that stuff

I walked around
And saw others' resting grounds
Some dead before I was even born
Others dead at the prime of childhood
Simple tombstones, mausoleums, caskets

A burial was taking place on the other street
Mourners dressed in dark shades
A priest, the only one in white

I was wearing white
My mother was wearing violet

After the niceties and the prayers
We had a little picnic
Chicken Adobo
Mom tries her best
But can't replicate the flavour of his

I reminisce of my days of innocence
In the green gate of the school
When he picks me up
The gray sand of Baler
Where he grew up
The brown hills of bohol
My first plane ride

I was now 8 years in disbelief
8 years in trouble
8 years in agony

The salt of the meal moves me to tears
Imperfect replicas of perfect memories
But I can't let myself cry

I remembered suddenly the night before
In a quick glance
I thought I saw his face in the mirror
But it was just my tired face
I was listening to "Bato sa Buhangin" by Cinderella

On the drive home
I listened to the same song
It was his favourite
He could play the melody with a guitar
Something I've been practicing for a while now
But fail to do

At home
On the bed before I sleep
It finally erupts
And I say to myself
"Father, why did you leave us!"

Poetry is when you built me
only to break me down into words.
Art is when you ran to me
when you were breaking on your own.
I was a winning manuscript,
but you reduced me to bamboos and shells.
I was a renowned masterpiece,
but now I am one with my sands as I fell.
Poetry is when you wanted me
only to wash and wipe me out as I rose up.
Art is when you loved me
only to turn my back, letting you down.
Symphony is when you cried
only for me to cry harder, bow, and howl.
History is when we heard the gunshots
only did they replace our jokes and songs.
Revolution is the sound of the bombs
when I was asking for the truth for so long.

I used to be a place of worship,
my body used to be a temple
of what you used to call God;
remember when you prayed to him?
Now I am all but rubbles,
a ruin after a year of shambles.
I used to be where the choir sings,
I used to be the center, facing the town hall
of the place you used to control and reign;
remember how cold it feels like every fall?
Now in silence I will succumb,
I’d bury myself for an eternity of hush.
Now in secrets I am downed and numb,
I’d drown myself in waves of delayed rush.

The painting sat in an old junk shop
At the far end of The Strand,
It caught my eye and it made me stop
Though the subject wasn’t grand.
A woman stood in a window frame
And she stared out at the street,
The pavement there was of cobblestones
And the whole thing was, well, neat!

The basic thing that had caught my eye
Was the woman’s face, I know,
I didn’t think she had sat for it
But it looked like Billie Jo.
The likeness there was remarkable
In the lips, that sullen pout,
The hooded eyes that had looked so wise,
Overall, it knocked me out.

I bought the painting and took it home
And I showed my Billie Jo,
She couldn’t believe the likeness, and
I said, ‘I told you so.’
‘You’re sure that you didn’t sit for this,
I find it rather strange?’
The look on her face said something else,
Like guilt, but rearranged.

‘I don’t want to talk about the thing,
You shouldn’t have brought it home,
The look of that woman’s creepy,
I’d have left it well alone.’
‘It’s almost as if you have a twin,’
I said to Billie Jo,
‘There may be some things about you, girl,
You don’t want me to know.’

She shrugged, and she walked away just then
So I hung it on the wall,
She made me pull it down and hang it
Somewhere in the hall,
She didn’t care just where, she said
But she didn’t want to see,
The face of that strange woman, she said,
‘Looking back at me.’

The footsteps came on that very night
And they padded in the hall,
We woke and we lay awake in dread
And Billie began to bawl.
‘She’s come, I know that she's come for me,
When I thought I’d put her down,
The day that she rode that coal black hearse,
And was buried in the ground.’

I said that she’d best come clean with me
And she told about her twin,
‘I didn’t tell you before, because she
Frightened me out of my skin.
She used to say that she hated me
And would somehow bring me harm,
I caught her poisoning fizzy drinks
When we lived down on the farm.’

‘We had a fight in the cattle yard
That was one of her designs,
She kicked at me and she fell back hard,
Impaled on the baler tines.
She coughed up blood and she looked at me
And she spat, with her final breath,
‘You’ll not escape, I’ll open the gates
Of hell, to do you death.’’

‘She must have posed for that picture
In the week before she died,
And you have brought her on home to me,
I could swear that the picture sighed.’
I took it away the following day
And I burnt it in the well,
As the fire devoured the woman’s face,
It shrieked, from the gates of hell.

David Lewis Paget

The dry day came
The baler the same
Walking behind they magically pop out
We march to the call and gurn to the shout

The lift is swift
And the landing is firm
On the steel trailer bed
Nothing more to be said

Off to the yard
To the pile at the top
We hide our protest
Man, this is hot

I can't see for the dust
The smell of the hay
Makes us lift faster
I'll remember this day

A neat puzzle is made
My energy will fade
Every bale must fit
Every lift, one of grit

The sweat and the heat
This job is not complete
Once more to the field
To gather the yield

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Our licensed soap-istas take dried wasp-****
And whatever stuff the hay-baler missed
And through our hand-made, slow-cold processes
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we harvest ****** ditch water legally
And extra-****** jimpson weeds (so extra-
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We’re your natural neighbors; your major
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                                          (but, psssst, it’s just soap)

When the wheat from fields are reaped,  
There's much work yet to be done.
Stalks are then cut and harrowed,
Then they're dried by wind and sun.

The work done by the bailer,
Compacts straw that's in furrows,
After twine tightens the straw,
Each bale off the baler goes.

Today lets forget the gym,    
It's the day that we make straw.
It's time to work our muscles.
From rest it's time to withdraw.

There'll be work on the trailer,  
And there'll be work on the field.
The work is more exhausting,        
Where the wheat had a good field.

Bales are brought to the trailer,    
Where they're thrown then stacked on it.
The work is sure exhausting,
But its not yet time to quit.

Byhe bale escalator, 
To the barn times bales are brought.
When there's no escalator,
We then work more than we ought.

Stacking bales inside the barn,  
Laborious it's there too;
When the bales are put away,
To the kitchen we head to.

Early one morning I woke up ready to go
Threw on my work uniform and dissolved the moon into my tea
Went out back, smoked burned some herb under the cloak of early morning

I feel the hard monster pushing on my back bones
Like the cardboard baler at work
Trying to normalize my life
The sunlight trying to keep itself simple,
Simplification crushing,
Business monster with roots in all the buildings
With roots in our nature,
Please let me out.

it must be tiring
with all the heat
of summer

it was cool here yesterday
down the estuary

and rain came about 7.30

refreshing while walking

no use when your job is baling
when the baler is jammed

so we had a break in the back garden
six feet apart and talked about policemen

remembering earlier times

later a friend rang and said it was good
to hear a different perspective on things

i also was interested to hear a different

perspective on things

we come lately
we come with more
promise

with bird song
this morning

so why the darkness
some days

is that natural?

there is a clear pool up by the mountain
where recently visitors have left litter

dark clouds gathering

my friend reminded me today
of barefoot roy, great-uncle roy,
who rode the baler chute all day,
and twisted wires like christmas toys,
before grass string & knotters ruled,
then big bales bucked with tractor forks
and kids were told to stay in school,
his feet resembling bottle corks,
the only man i ever knew
could walk a stubblefield full speed,
through cockleburrs & startled snakes,
without the notion or the need
for brogans where the hay's been raked;
he picked on her, he picked on me,
and prayed to god to let him be.