When she would "look back on time with kindly eyes". I wonder if she ever pondered on the imagery from each line, and be wary about what the enjambments mean.
But through her eyes, I see only survival, and though not very familiar with Darwin, she has the eyes of someone trying to be the fittest.
Just the other night I asked, "What do you plan to do about it?"
Almost in a whisper, she asked, "What do you think?"
Then I hoped to find somewhere in my mind things that I could share. I thought about that rainy night, when I had to sleep under a tree, with two big bags full of clothes and books, hoping the rain would stop, and let me sleep for even just a couple of hours. What could I tell her from that? That the rain did not listen to my prayers? And I had to run to a nearby church where, when I thought I had slept for a few minutes, people attending mass came?
I thought about Emily, too, and how she seems to hold the world with her words, how she seems to have something to say about the most banal of life. She talked about afternoons, about the breeze that makes the leaves of the trees rustle. Still, I was not sure if those were her exact words, but at least those images were the ones I remember.
I also thought about the prince that concerned himself only about goals, believing the end can justify the means.
I muttered, "Priorities".
She kept quiet for some time, and said, "The little one has taken a liking to him, too, you know? She even asked if he was going to be her new dad."
I thought, what would they say to that?
I told her that reminded me of one Christmas when I had to go back home, without a single centavo in my pocket. I only had my ticket with me. I got on the boat, only to find out two hours later, after the ship had departed, that I had lost my wallet, with my ticket inside.
Then I told her about a time when I left home for the first time in my life to go to college. On the bus to the city where a ship would take me to Manila, an old lady gave me a cookie. I must have looked so terrified at what was going to happen to me in a place so far away from home that she thought a cookie would make me feel better.
"And?" she asked, not quite sure what my stories had to do with all she said.
I looked at her again. She was very young when her father left them. She raised her brothers and sisters. That she did in between her classes in school. She graduated, and found a stable job. She has always been her family's only hope, the father they never had. Five years ago, she became a mother, too.
She does not care about what Emily has to say about the lillies of the pond or that the prince would kill for his goals. She gets up at 5, helps her daughter prepare for school, teaches at 7, begins her regular office job at 9 and gets home by 8 in the evening. I wish I knew what the exact words then. I would have told her something common, written in the most beautiful way possible, that she would...
"Look back on time with kindly eyes,
doubtless she did her best,
How softly sinks her trembling sun
In human nature's west!"
Instead, I said, "And...I think you know what to do."
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