Moon over Magarao

Books, aside from my pillows and blankets are my constant and faithful companions during nighttime. The people of Iriga sleep very early except for tricycle drivers, peanut, barbeque and balut vendors, who still roam the main streets to earn extra incomes for their dependants. There are of course some people here who spend their nights in beer houses and KTV bars that you can find mostly along the roads going to Nabua and Baao, in between or in front of Christian churches.

At 8: 30 in the evening, the main streets are cleared, save for the stray dogs and cats that haunt their own living in empty trash cans. Perhaps this behavior is still an effect of the prevalent belief that there are aswangs in the city. The poor police security system that’s why people don’t feel safe can also be the reason or there is really nothing left for Iriga when night comes. People prefer to stay in their own homes and watch their favorite T.V. Programs. Even Internet cafes close very early because of fear of possible hold-ups, and true, there are lesser costumers during nighttime. With this given situation, I have been reading all the stuffs available in my room. That is why, every month I try to have at least a couple of new books that I buy or lend from school and public libraries. This passion for reading is contagious, even my roommate has to endure my long hours of reading and instead of staring at our bluish wall, he too, have tried reading and now enjoys it too.

But time comes when I miss every one and yet I can’t go out to hang out or relax because I know there is nothing that waits me outside. This happens especially when the moon is out and I would recall my life living nearby the sea, when I was a pre-college seminarian in San Jose. Oh, the shore of Sabang, I hear it calling me again and again. And since Iriga does not so much enjoy full moons, (Perhaps because this is the time when aswangs haunt for possible prey, as they say) I, left with no choices resorted to reading again. I got this new book I bought last December and tried reading it again. This is Luis Cabalquinto’s Moon Over Magarao, published by UP Press. The book title is enough to attract my attention. In time when the moon is fully bared, nothing can be better than a book with a moon-title. And after thirty minutes, the book gave me more pleasure and insights than before. Because I must admit, that some of its poems are really meant to be pondered in time. I don’t know if there’s good number of Bikolanos who are aware that there is such a man with this name that writes good damn poetry. Cabalquinto is our very own. Born and grew up in Magarao, he and his family now live in New York. In this new poetry collection, Cabalquinto discussed various issues that dealt on alienation and missing one’s homeland. He also breathed into life some long forgotten things about Bikol, about Magarao. Who among us still hold in memory the Peñafrancia Train Station, the Paracale Beach and who would forget the terrors of Martial Law? There’s one poem in this book of Pay Luis that at one time I almost cried. It’s about military brutality. These lines are very vivid and sharp that it cut my skin, tear apart my soul, and I gnashed my teeth after reading these verses from Edge of the Woods: Try to imagine how they got Armando. /He was caught in ambush and, /Still alive, brought to the edge of the woods. /They stripped him, laughed at his lack of hair. /Then they cut off his nose and ears. /They bore deeper holes into the holes of his eyes. Why such atrocities towards a fellow man?

The book covers a wide range of themes and that is why I find a true and unlamented gain in reading it. From this untidy bed that I have been lying for almost seven months, I, in a matter of two minutes, come alive and transported to the streets of Manhattan, the green fields of Magarao, inside a Cathay Pacific airplane and in many places and instances only our real imagination can reach.
There are too many striking things to say about the book. It has saved me from an incurable boredom brought into my mind by some lunatic forces of the moon and also from this estrangement I am experiencing in my own place. Perhaps, if I leave Iriga, I’ll miss Iriga and be able to write about Iriga too, and that is what I am grappling now, I am missing that one landmark in Naga, beside that striking Cathedral, that place with old red bricks I once call—my home. But trust me, Moon Over Magarao is a book we all must have. It is not a shitty book. It’s Luis Cabalquinto’s. It is our own!