Poetry Friday – Tita Lacambra Ayala’s Road Map Series

Last Friday, we announced the launching of The Poet’s Sanctum here at GatheringBooks. For July and August, we are honored and thrilled to feature Tita Lacambra Ayala’s poetry.

Our feature also comes at a serendipitous time since yesterday marked the 30th year of Road Map Series, a “voice-in-the-wilderness publication” that is spearheaded and edited by Tita Lacambra Ayala.

This poster for the 30th Anniversary Celebration on 21 July 2011 was created by Tita's daughter, celebrated singer-songwriter Cynthia Alexander for the 30th Anniversary of the Road Map Series. I feel so bad that I missed this.

The Road Map Series (or RMS) has been decribed as a ‘launching pad’ for many aspiring writers. As of 21 July, there are a total of 83 issues in all which feature various authors, artists, poets, and budding writers.

For today’s Poetry Friday which is being hosted by Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference, I shall be featuring Madam Tita’s “Ordinary Poems – Being New Poems” originally published by Erehwon Publishing House in 1967 and recently republished by Road Map Series in 2011. This little booklet has a total of 30 poems in all with Jolico Cuadra writing the Foreword.

This booklet was given to me by Madam Tita herself when I visited her home nearly two weeks ago.

Since it is summer time in other parts of the world (winter though to our friends in Australia and New Zealand), I feel that Tita Lacambra Ayala’s Summer Song would be perfect:

Summer Song by Tita Lacambra Ayala (published in the book Ordinary Poems by Erehwon Manila, 1967, reprinted by Road Map Series in 2011)

That morning you opened the window

there was reverence in your face

and an April look saying:

there is none more beautiful

than the world waking up.

 

Since then you have become

too much part of summer,

of deep-breathing black coffee steam,

of hair wet from a swim nestled in pillows,

of naked footprint centered on polished floor.

 

Since then you have become

too much part of waking:

to sights I have been blind to

to sounds I never heard

and nuances I never could accept before you.

 

Now I am all music and if I remember

too strongly the beating of your breath

upon my hair, if I wish too much

you had not travelled out of touch,

pass this off as another fever

of an overactive brain.

 

Once in a while my year

should pass unnoticed, sparing me summer

the season that remembers you.

As I read through the pages, struggling to find another one that made me catch my breath in its lyrical beauty, I find it extremely difficult – all the poems move me in countless of ways. However, I must choose only one – to give you a teaser, a taste of Madam Tita’s sweetness, occasionally tinged with soulful darkness and enchantment. Here is Fragments:

Fragments by Tita Lacambra Ayala (published in the book Ordinary Poems by Erehwon Manila, 1967, reprinted by Road Map Series in 2011)

Burn bright as candle

column of rain

spoken for.

The Sphinx grew roots

where it stood or sat

roots so long they broke

out to the other sided globe

gathered and pounded out

into fibers to make a robe.

Be my lemon peel

be my drink

be the dream that drives me

the despair that wilts.

Nostalgia is a leaf

lying on a window

stain on a sheet

or a day’s weather.

If you think this encounter with you

excessive and deep

wipe it away with a rain of silence

or inanely remark

how long the day is.

Are you bright and early 

needle in the hay?

Are you lost for granted

at the break of day?

Turn your heart to candy

or a golden egg

or a bright sunflower

tattooed on a leg.