The Hypocritic Days: A Meditation on Ralph Waldo Emerson's Days

Ralph Waldo Emerson's Days has been one of the few poems I know by heart.
Subjectively, it is one of my favorite and which has influenced my attitude towards
the literary arts. 

A quiet morning in the woods. The revelry of men of welcoming the new year with big bangs has already been concluded. The highway in front of my place is almost deserted. Just a few hours ago, it was audience to such frenzy of noise: firecrackers cracking, tin cans tied on a speeding motorcycle, drunken drum corps beating drums on a dump truck, and my neighbors banging their cauldrons repeatedly! Now, all is still asleep but me and my household.

A quiet morning in the woods. I found myself  alone in the woods in search for some mushrooms. I seem to have no luck these days finding some. Gone were the days when my old folks would come here and collect a basket-full of "ligbos"--"sangka nigo nga ligbos!" Not even "uhong o amamakoe sa may puno it saging" (Uhong is another variety that sprouts out solitarily while Amamakoe is that bigger variety in small batches that thrives on decaying banana sheaths). I badly need fresh mushrooms for my pasta today.

A quiet morning in the woods. And yet my mind is already noisy with possibilities in view of my failure of finding mushrooms. Options for my pasta--what options do you suggest? No fresh mushrooms for a white-sauced pasta. Can you imagine that? What about experimenting on "Anaea-taea" (my local anise-like herb that thrives along the unnamed creek that cuts through my orchard)? But that will not suffice.

For sure it was a quiet morning in the woods. But this early, my mind is already seeing the scorn. Ah, the scorn! What about it? Hypocritic days make you see the scorn. Not my original. Those are the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Yet I was experiencing such reality in the here and now--there in the quiet morning in the woods as I was frantically searching for mushrooms. Am I after Emerson to take this quiet day hypocritic all because I failed to collect mushrooms from their usual thriving ground? This quiet day deceived me into going out into the woods as I anticipated finding some rare mushrooms sprouting out because to-day in a new day, the first of the days of 2012!

 DAYS

DAUGHTERS of Time, the hypocritic Days,

Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,

And marching single in an endless file,

Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.

To each they offer gifts after his will,

Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all.

I, in my pleachèd garden, watched the pomp,

Forgot my morning wishes, hastily

Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day

Turned and departed silent. I, too, late,

Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.

This quiet day deceived me. She seems when she is not. She is a daughter of time, no question about it. She and her sisters are much like those barefoot dervishes who march single in an endless file. And she brings diadems and fagot (opportunities) to offer as gifts for the takers--but not for those who passively waits like Juan Tamad. For the gifts being offered are after his own will. Did I made my lauds this morning? Did I went about my morning wishes first before rushing on to finding mushrooms? I seemed to have been seduced by the pomp of  riches (bread), power (kingdom), vision (stars) and intelligence (sky) that I forgot those simple rituals.  I seem to forget even about her and now as she turned and silently departed, I noticed the scorn on her brow.

Sorry, no mushroom for to-day. Sorry, the days are changing. We let go of them years back for they were hypocritic, that's how they seem. So sorry that it is only now that we are seeing the scorn on her brows.