Last week’s column (“Disappeared”) which was about remembering those who vanished in the night, and where I used excerpts from an article (“The Missing and Dead and those who Survive to Tell the Story.”) that I wrote in the 1980s elicited some heart-tugging feedback. One of them was from poet Grace Monte de Ramos who had been moved many years ago by that feature story that came out in the Mr.& Ms. Special edition (the “subversive” edition edited by the present Inquirer editor in chief) and was “provoked” to write a poem.
For Grace, last week’s column piece again released a stream of memories.
I seldom use readers’ letters and the ensuing exchange of thoughts (via e-mail) in this column but maybe this one with Grace would resonate with those who believe that we should not totally leave the past behind.
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Dear Ceres,
I've just read "Disappeared". Was this so long ago, you ask. Yes, it was, because from this remove I can't recall if I ever thanked you for the story that you reprinted today. You see, the women in the story were the inspiration—though I find that word insipid in this case; it was more of provocation, instigation—for my poem "Brave Woman".
It was not an easy poem to write, and it took me some time to get it to move. That happened only after I let go of my third-person, omniscient-point-of view voice, and allowed the mother to speak and tell the story herself. (Did I say "allow"? It felt more like "compelled".) It was her story, after all. The poem belonged to her.
"Brave Woman" was first published in 1983, if I remember correctly, and it was last published (as far as I know) in 2003, as part of an anthology of anti-Iraq war poems (“Poets Against the War”, edited by Sam Hamill, published by Thunder's Mouth Press/Nation Books). I believe it is also in some textbooks.
But to tell you the truth, I am a little tired of it. Sometimes I wish I could bury it, lock it away with other juvenilia. How could I let it go, though?
You could not let the story go. We cannot let it go, because more than 20 years later, mothers are still going through the same ordeal. Twenty years, and it seems we haven't learned one lesson!
Obviously, more work needs to be done, even as the mourning continues. So tiring, if you think of it. The task looks formidable, Sisyphian even. But I hope you never tire of it. Thank you for writing about Manang Dina and others like her, thank you for giving a face and voice to the women who bear the burden of injustice.
God bless,
Grace
Here is Grace’s 1983 poem, “Brave Woman”:
I am a mother of sons.
Two joined the army when they were young;
There was not enough money for school,
They had no skills for jobs in foundries
And factories, and it was easy to sign up
And learn how to handle a gun.
I am a mother of sons, two sons
And one, the youngest, now gone.
In his youth he was taken
By men whose names I never will learn.
I only know they were soldiers, like my sons,
Cradling fearsome guns.
He was a fine young man. I took care of him
For seventeen years and they took him away
And now I am searching for his bones.
I will never learn their names.
Alone I try to imagine the scene: were their faces
Bearded or clean-shaven?
Perhaps their bodies were robust.
Did they wear uniforms the color of shrivelled
Sampaguita or fresh horseshit?
How pointed the bullets from their guns?
My soldier sons come home
When life in the barracks is still.
I hide their brother's picture;
It makes them cry and remember.
Perhaps they, too (God forbid it),
Have given other mothers sorrow.
Perhaps my son had to pay for what they borrowed.
I cannot cry, though I am told
It is better to cry and let go.
Where is my son's body for me to bury?
I only wear my grief in the lines
Of my face, my sunken cheeks.
Silent, I mourn a woman's
Bitter lot: to give birth to men
Who kill and are killed.
****
I wrote back to tell Grace that yes, she had thanked me a long time ago and sent me her autographed book of poems. And she replied: “See, it really was a long time ago, since I've forgotten about thanking you and all! Where did the time go? Here I was trying to slip into domestic anonymity, hoping to live out the rest of my life as a hermit (with internet access)—but the world intrudes. You've written many columns that have moved me, but that one really compelled me (that word again) to actually let you know. It got me depressed and I had to do something to ease the aching. ”Yes, you may use my letter, but maybe you should leave out the first two sentences in the second paragraph… (I did not delete it, Grace.) The poem might sound corny to me but maybe the young people who don't remember martial law will take something from it.”
The aching, yes, the aching in remembering. But it, too, is grace.
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