15.) Edith Tiempo

            Edith L. Tiempo, poet, fictionist, teacher and literary critic is one of the finest Filipino writers in English whose works are characterized by a remarkable fusion of style and substance, of craftsmanship and insight. She was born on 22 April 1919 in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. Her poems are intricate verbal transfigurations of significant experiences as revealed, in two of her much anthologized pieces, "The Little Marmoset" and "Bonsai". As fictionist, Tiempo is as morally profound. Her language has been marked as "descriptive but unburdened by scrupulous detailing." She is an influential tradition in Philippine literature in English. Together with her late husband, Edilberto K. Tiempo, she founded and directed the Silliman National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City, which has produced some of the country's best writers.

            Tiempo's published works include the novel A Blade of Fern (1978), His Native Coast (1979), The Alien Corn (1992), One, Tilting Leaves (1995) and The Builder (2003); the poetry collections, The Tracks of Babylon and Other Poems (1966), and The Charmer's Box and Other Poems (1993); and the short story collection Abide, Joshua, and Other Stories(1964). (Adapted from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts website)

            All that I love were with me tonight. Well, maybe not all, because that would mean the world. But it was enough. And it was a moment I can relive for always. Do you know the feeling of being swept away? Of just losing yourself completely, just for a moment, or for all time, or both? That’s how it was. And it was the perfect way to end my birthday month, and it was just fitting, to be standing in that room, filled with strangers and friends, of people I’ll never see again and music that will be with me forever.

So, here, a poem for celebrating:

Bonsai

Edith Tiempo

All that I love

I fold over once

And once again

And keep in a box

Or a slit in a hollow post

Or in my shoe.

All that I love?

Why, yes, but for the moment-

And for all time, both.

Something that folds and keeps easy,

Son’s note or Dad’s one gaudy tie,

A roto picture of a queen,

A blue Indian shawl, even

A money bill.

It’s utter sublimation,

A feat, this heart’s control

Moment to moment

To scale all love down

To a cupped hand’s size

Till seashells are broken pieces

From God’s own bright teeth,

And life and love are real

Things you can run and

Breathless hand over

To the merest child.