To Cry for Your Homeland/
Tapno Ibitam ti Daga a Nakayanakan
1.
Today, you watched The Debut
And you cried for your homeland.
It is so far out there in the memory
Seven thousand miles away
Of worlds swirling, sterile and haunting
The letters of your country
Bearing no address no addressee
But words of regret for leaving
And then losing the chance
To touch the warmth of her absence.
Ita, binuyam ti The Debut
Ket inibitam ti daga a nakayanakan.
Adayo daytoy iti lagip
Milia a pito ribo a kaadayo
Dagiti lubong a puligos a puligos,
Lupes ken mangar-araria
Kadagiti surat ti pagilian
Awanan mangibuson awanan mangawat
Ngem dagiti balikas a panagbabawi iti ipapanaw
Tapno laeng mapukaw ti tiansa
A mangapiras iti darang ti panaglanganna.
2.
The emotions come confused
As you think of green leaves falling
While the young grow old in strange
Foliage of dialect and diction
Their dreams a dire dictum moving
To where the westerly winds surrender
To the full moon, its light
Spiraling low and low
In the free fall of a midnight
Of estranged self in solitude
Of generations the future has no hold
No virtue for what comes a hundredfold
And yet, and yet, here you are
In this stronghold of this newness of old,
Leaving soon in the earnestness
Of the morning’s early hours to roost.
Agsidunget dagiti rikna
Iti panagpanunot kadagiti agruros a berde a bulong
Idinto a dagiti naganus agbanagda a natangkenan
Karkarna a panagrukbos iti dialekto ken bengngat
Dagiti tagainepda nakakaskas-ang a kassaba
Nga agkamang a sumuko kadagiti pul-oy nga abagat
Iti kannag, iti karayrayan a silawna
Agbalinsuek nga agpabpababa, agpabpababa
Iti nawayas a pannakaikarasukos iti kaltaang
Dagiti naiwawa a bagi iti panagmaymaysa
Kadagiti henerasion ti masakbayan nga awanan pateg
Awanan birtud iti sumangbay a ginasut
Ket nupay kasta, nupay kasta, addaka ita ditoy
Iti daytoy a puerta ti kabaruanan ti un-unana a panawen
Dandanin pumanaw iti regget
Tapno agapon kadagiti nasakbay nga oras ti bigat.
A. Solver Agcaoili
Hon, HI/Jan 10/09
2 comments:
IBIT. Did you use this word because you grew up in a place where the local folks commonly use?
Funny but Batac and Pinili is just about 25 kms apart along the national highway and they even share (I guess) a common barangay border somewhere in the northern part of Pinili.
Ibit kunada diay Pinili. Sangit kunada diay Batac.
What a wonderful world of the Ilocano language, n'est-ce pas?
Vf: I have a lexical access to both 'ibit' and 'sangit'. Sangit has the musicality (some kind of a lyrical quality of the L,S,D sounds) that did not sit well with the sorrowful longing of the line. So: I had to make that difficult choice. Is this conscious act called 'diction'?
Yes, the Ilokano language continues to mesmerize me. Frankly, I write in it, but I do not think I can ever come to come to terms with its vast possibilities. I am always surprised--and terrorized!--by the kind of potency and potentiality it has.
Then again, language tears down borders, I believe.
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