X-Sight by Cesar Ruiz Aquino

 

X Sight

by Cesar Ruiz Aquino

 

Strange is your facelessness when I try

To picture you. You don’t jell

Not the faintest image. Worse,

If I close my mind’s eye,

I might dream nothing.

What if I heard

Your name and it will ring no bell?

Stranger and stranger until I’d run

Into you and know of course

This must be why. Here

Is why. This face.

This sheer sight that leaves no trace.

This strangest thing

Now in the sun.

       

Lugsong's Analysis/Point of View

How does one find X? “The poem reminds me of an algebra equation that says “If the value of so and so, what is the value of X?” Finding the value of X has never been an easy task [at least for me], but then what is dawned on me and what I have learned is that X always stands for the unknown. As the algebra equation, so is the line of the poem, when we are not aware of one’s value it becomes “strange… the facelessness of someone when one tries to picture it out.”

The poem speaks of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of what tomorrow might bring. Perhaps, it is a question every person asks when facing a crossroad, a dilemma, even perhaps old age. My grandmother who passed away sometime last year had asked me this question, “kapag matanda na ako, aalagaan mo pa rin ba ko? Hindi moa ko kalilimutan?” recalling it now, I smile, was given the privilege to help look after her, as to kalilimutan, she forgot us. She only recalls he memories of our childhood and would always believe my little girl to be me- perhaps, this is what the say is saying, one’s image cannot jell, it would be complete, and sometimes it wont even ring a bell. The poem has a lot of conditions, thus the more one feels the overwhelming fear of what if’s like the line “/What if I heard/Your name and it will ring no bell?/Yes, what is? As the poem goes ‘/stranger and stranger until I’d return/ Into you and know of course/ This must be why./ Here is why/ Although the poem has a lot of what if’s, still in the end the speaker knows there is an answer somewhere, an explanation and perhaps even a clarification and a redemption to memories that are lost. As the last four lines of the poem”/ This face./This sheer sight that leaves no trace./This strangest thing/Now in the sun./ show us that memories belong to something that is far back but never completely forgotten. It guides our step as much as the sun does, it sheds light on our unfathomable nights, and although the speaker said it leaves no trace, it does not mean it did not happen.

As to finding the value of X? as the title suggests, it is an X-sight. An experience considered to be random and simple but has created the greatest impact in one’s life.