THE REASON WHY I CRY

I am no drama queen. Although there were times that my favorite past time was to wallow into self-pity, I usually keep it to my self.

But I am a "cry baby" and a "sentimental fool". I don't usually cry for myself. I have already spent considerable time crying in self-pity when I was still a kid that I could no longer cry for myself now.

I usually cry from what I saw on TV or in the movies. I cry for happiness when I watch stories of people who emerged victorious over the impossible odds they faced in life like extreme poverty. I cried when a child whose only Christmas wish was for a decent roof for their shanty, but was instead given all the things needed for their house. I cried when the kids of Vilma Santos in Bata, Bata Paano Ka Ginawa choose not their respective father but her and greeted her "happy women's day." I cried over a lot of things, even those things to which other might find corny.

Last I cried. But it was out of sadness. I cried while watching last night's episode of GMA's "Eyewitness. I cried over the fate of the children who were suffering from "war shock". I cried because at a tender age they have to suffer the atrocities caused by heartless adults. I cried because they used to have no biases against any Christians, but was now, because of what he saw, thought that all Christians are enemies. I cried for baby Almonar (I hope I got his name right) who was born while his parents (a Christian mother and a Muslim Father) were running away from the bombings in Pikit, Cotabato. I cried what kind of future he will have.

I also cried in happiness for a 63 year old math teacher, who left the comforts of the private school in Manila where he used to teach just to go to war ravaged portion of Mindanao and teach Children the culture of peace and help them come into terms with the violence that is going around them. But I still cried in sadness knowing that there are only few of them who still feel that they are needed here. Many of his fellow teachers have left for the United States. I wish they could hear say that despite the low salary and despite the less support from the government, a teacher could only have to look back and would know that there is at least one child who needs his or her guidance.

I cried knowing that with the war in Mindanao and the looming crisis in the Middle East, plenty of innocent Children will still have to suffer or die or lost a parent because the power-that-be can't just talk peace.

I hope Bush, Blair, Howard and the rest would consider the children before they go to war. But I cried knowing that this plea would just fall on deaf ears. Ando so I joined these poet when they said the following lines in the chapbook "100 Poets Against War":

Are there children
by Robert Priest

are there children somewhere
waiting for wounds
eager for the hiss of napalm
in their flesh -
he mutilating thump of shrapnel
do they long for amputation
and disfigurement
incinerate themselves in ovens
eagerly
are there some who try to sense
the focal points of bullets
or who sprawl on bomb grids
hopefully
do they still line up in queues
for noble deaths

i must ask:
are soul and flesh uneasy fusions
longing for the cut -
the bloody leap to ether
are all our words a shibboleth for silence -
a static crackle
to ignite the blood
and detonate the self-corroding
heart
does each man in his own way
plot a pogrom for the species
or are we all, always misled
to war

Easy
by Sampurna Chattarji

Death is easy to pronounce.
He deserved to die.
They ought to be shot.
Hanging's too good for him.
The words fall glib.
Throwaway lines
sentencing them to death.

Distant observer,
you speak without guilt, or fear
of misplaced allegiances.
You just need something to say,
that all.

The right sentiment, rightly declared
whichever way your loyalties blow
in the gust of the smokefilled air.
A country burns.

The death-dealers deserved to die,you say.
Death is easy to pronounce.
It the smell of burning children that's hard.