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.
