kabisdak: usa ka matang sa paglupad

10.06.2026

usa ka matang sa paglupad

Sa bata pa ko, ingon si Iyo Pilo

ang langgam makalupad

dili tungod sa iyang pako. Siya minyo

ni Tiya Iyay nga kalit lang

naamang. Ingon sila,

nabuang sa agta diha

sa kaymito sa tugkaran.

Matag adlaw si Iyo

mangaliya, manghugas

sa iyang asawa, manampong

sa iyang pagmahay.

Kay wa sila’y anak,

mahinangpon siyang'

magsud-ong sa Batang

Senyor sa dakbayan

patung sa altar.

Maghuwat siya

nga kini mosayaw ug

mopakitiw sa mga ngabil

nilang magtiayon nga

naughan og katawa.

Nasayran nako ang tubag

sa katloan ka tuig nga

pangutana ganihang

buntag, dihang

talisubang ang adlaw.

May usa ka dakong itom

nga langgam mitugpa

sa tugkaran sa akong

dughan, sa balita

nga si Iyo wala na

gikan siya mikatkat

sa taw-an nga kahoy, miambak

aron molupad...

Sa iyang bahin, si Tiya

nagpabiling humot

ug bus-ok uyamot, birheng

ulay nga sud-ongon, bata

ang panagway.

-- JOHN BITON

Rome, Italy

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hagit sa handurawan

"Reimmersion (in native culture) is not an end in itself; it is to define more clearly the native grounds on which the Cebuano poet stands, the local parameters of language and experience, toward the end that he can stand in the world confident in the singular value of his own voice...

To conserve and extend the resources to which the Cebuano poet is heir by enhancing the natural rhythms of native speech, cultivating the rich concreteness of dialect, and confronting the particulars of his social experience...

The Cebuano poet today does not come upon a language that is already there, ready to use; he has to recreate it not only out of the rawness of daily speech but summon out of language that which has already fallen away from common consciousness and use."

-- Dr. Resil Mojares,
"Cebuano Poetry: Looking Backward, Forward."

matod nila, mando nato

"What could I say at all without my roots?... What could I say without coming to ground?... and I took no journey other than the return."
-- Pablo Neruda

"And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
-- T.S. Eliot

"The work of language deserves our greatest care, for the tongue’s fire may devour the world, or may light the way."
-- Scott Russell Sanders

"Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it has been severed, like those bamboo thighs of the god… The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound, with any luck, and the body moves like a walking, a waking island."
-- Derek Walcott

"We ascend, from the infinite pit of our perceptions, to the finite life of words."
-- William Bronk

salo-salmot

Ari mo! Ambi, atong tilawan ang imong tampo. Palihog ipadala lang ang tinagik nga balak ug sugilanon ngadto sa geemyko@gmail.com.

Kinahanglang bag-o pang haon ang mugna nga imong buot idalit. Ang tigpasiugda ug tigdumala (moderator) niining balayan gapanilap sa katungod nga mopili ug modumili sa tampo. Tugotan pod unta siya og higayon nga mosugyot pagdugang og asin kon matab-angan usahay, pasabwan kun paughan gamay imong hinukad. Mao'y tumong ining balayan ang mamugnaong paghalingay ug pagsaw-anay sa atong gidalit. Kon gibalibaran, palihog ayaw og tyabaw. Ayaw tawon pamaak. Lagmit wala lang mobukal ang lana sa tigdumala kabahin sa timailhan sa tinuod nga wakwak.

sa makausa pa

"Reimmersion (in native culture) is not an end in itself; it is to define more clearly the native grounds on which the Cebuano poet stands, the local parameters of language and experience, toward the end that he can stand in the world confident in the singular value of his own voice...

To conserve and extend the resources to which the Cebuano poet is heir by enhancing the natural rhythms of native speech, cultivating the rich concreteness of dialect, and confronting the particulars of his social experience...

The Cebuano poet today does not come upon a language that is already there, ready to use; he has to recreate it not only out of the rawness of daily speech but summon out of language that which has already fallen away from common consciousness and use."
-- Dr. Resil Mojares,
"Cebuano Poetry: Looking Backward, Forward."