Remembering A Mess Hall
for "Mom" Edith Tiempo

 

There are millions of angles to photograph freedom from
just as there are millions of people—and lower animals—
            searching for that kingdom.
More photogenic still are its many wings, of unforgotten
            tortures, loads crying
vengeance, irresistible symbolic funerals. Most photo-
graphable, though, the loot in the mansion that once
            ruled even churchyards.

That's your cue. We've formed ideologies out of pent-up
            emotions.
Not from arguments, not from compassions, not from a
            self-criticism
that may wander inside the soul of a long-unthinking
            victim.
That what we get instead is a flimsy methodological vari-
            ation on
the same objects of an erstwhile national belief in leisure:
bank accounts, pop music, gross national product, night
            lights.
Do we need to mention the gambling activity breathing
            back life into our misery?

Freedom for the sake of freedom creates its own anarchy,
            nay, tyranny.
What goes here is a gangsterist pillory. In public art halls,
            opinion columns,
appointment committees, trial courts, or tv varieties. For
freedom's not a trophy won, nor a slogan for corned beef
            sauté,
certainly not the reward reserved for those who prayed.
            It is
there as invisible flag one carries wherever he may go/be,
be it Tibet in '93 or California in the '50s.

                                                                                    Freedom, oxy-
            moron,
sits in the mind of an unmoving passion. Free yourself
            from want
and you may even soon miss it. The ultimate freedom can
            be seen in a mess kit.

Say freedom involves dreams, surround, pasts, and con-
            flict.
Isn't it safe to say it's best felt while we're looking for it?

 

 

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This poem was inspired by a piece titled That Oxymoron, Freedom, by the Filipino poet, novelist, critic, teacher, and co-founder (with her late husband) of the Silliman University Creative Writing Workshop—and "Mom" to all SU writing fellows—Edith Tiempo.

 

 

 

Copyright © 1999, 2004 Vicente-Ignacio Soria de Veyra. All rights reserved. Readers are welcome to view, save, file and print out single copies of this webpage for their personal use. No reproduction, display, performance, multiple copy, transmission, or distribution of the work herein, or any excerpt, adaptation, abridgment or translation of same, may be made without written permission from the author. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this work will be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

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