Memoriam

Ryan, a friend from Candon, came to Baguio to light a candle for his cousin, a recent PMA graduate who died exactly a year ago when the plane he was piloting crashed in Kias. Martin Caoili, an internationally-known faithhealer since the 1970s, also died last Sunday. He is a good friend. Also, my father died May 20, 1990.
















Here is a poem I wrote two years ago. It came out last year in "Honoring Fathers: An International Anthology."

PLAYING ONLINE CHESS WITH MY FATHER FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH:
THREE SONNETS



Opening

Hair on your nape don't stand up every day
(2:15 am) you are logged in the Internet.
And I'm in my 15th chess game and with eight straight
Wins, I was on a mini-streak when he came to play.
So I thought, What the heck and wrote, "Hello ."
And he answered, "Thank you." I answered, "What for?"
Then I remembered our last talk together. "What for,"
I stupidly replied when he thanked me 14 years ago
When I should have known, he was thanking
Me for caring with him in the hospital. I am like that
In chess: disdaining gambits and head-on openings,
Preferring Sicilian and hypermoderns. Blame that
To my being the youngest and my father (1st teacher),
Whose first move (PK4) exposes the king, the father.



Middle game

Middle games bore me. My father was middle-aged
When he had me. For the past 20 years, I've been told
I write like an old man. Maybe because I was weaned old
By my brother's Beat books and my dad's faded
French classics and 60's magazines. As a prudent gesture,
I was not baptized till I'm six because dad wanted me to choose
The gods to believe. So maybe now I had to impose
This on my daughter. During his wake, people always picture
Him a gentleman. Not now that his bishops hold fort
The grand diagonals. From him, I lately preferred patience over
Devotion, quiet moves over loud sacrifices, bishops over
Galloping knights. Although I missed trashtalking in court,
Online I am all business. Like fatherhood, chess after centuries,
Refined our cruelties by bringing nobility to the pieces.




Endgame

In the movies, Death plays Chess. Do I take
That he always play with black, with a timer and Deep Blue precision?
My father brought me to an endgame which I reckoned
I can't win unless I wait for an impatient mistake
Which is unthinkable since my Dad spent most of his years punching
Clocks which I have disdain of. But he loved to cite
The rule to give enemies a chance to escape, not so they fight
Us for another day but to give you respect while they lie dying.
While I was two pieces down, he moved his king
Unnecessarily so I can give him a perpetual check.
His king and my rook in a brief tango before he said, "What the heck.
It's a draw!" I said, "Tnx. Another?." He said, "Next time. And bring
Your chessbooks of the crazy ones who are on the other side.
You just might beat Death." Then he left at the exact hour he died.