Reflecting for the Week (3)

(image credit)

I pause from blogging this week, in order to reflect more on my other work: Theory of Algorithms and The Core Algorithm.

What do you need to reflect on, and how often should you do so?

Reflecting for the Week (2)

(image credit)

I pause from blogging this week, in order to reflect more on my other work: Theory of Algorithms and The Core Algorithm.

What do you need to reflect on, and how often should you do so?

Reflecting for the Week (1)

(image credit)

I pause from blogging this week, in order to reflect more on my other work: Theory of Algorithms and The Core Algorithm.

What do you need to reflect on, and how often should you do so?

Epitaph for Maria's Friend

(image credit)

When all he wished to do was earn a living
In order to support his family,
To live an earnest life and be forgiving,
Must someone slap a brutal tragedy?
     For with his death we have unfurled
     A pall of winter on the world.

For Rohit Jagada

`Epitaph for Maria's Friend © Ron Villejo

"Thank You for the Music"

Jumeirah Music Center

Poetry awakens fresh

In the evening when the rush
That defines our day has passed.

Nimble fingers on the strings –

How they dance in concert like

A ballet of their creating.

Duet on piano as

Lovers are in their relating –

Playful, push and pull, and close.

Habanera in the square

Where our dear soprano sings

Like a northern mockingbird.

Gossip is just chatter but

Put to music it becomes

Opera as Mozart found.

Song, emotion, image, dance
Come however they may come
Still lead us to poetry.

On attending the concert by the Jumeirah Music Center, in support of the Philippine Bantay Bata charity

"Thank You for the Music" © Ron Villejo

On Ramadan

(image credit)

Part 1

I am not Muslim, but on Ramadan,
     I pray that all of us be kind –
     That rise or set, no matter where the sun,
Oh, kindly be the friend we find.

Part 2

To feel the hunger that the poor may feel –
This is what Ramadan means to reveal.

Part 3

To exercise restraint
     On things that we consume
     Allows our soul the room
To love without constraint.

Part 4

To fast means more than saying ‘no’
     To food or drink or smoke or take –
     It’s saying ‘yes’ for goodness sake 

And following where angels go.

Part 5

Can we be faulted for the human wish to have, to want, to get? 

Maybe not. If the call to give is something we do not forget.

`On Ramadan © Ron Villejo

Ramadan and Change

(image credit)

That Ramadan can help us change is right –
The holy month creates a line of sight
To lasting goodness, and ensures the fight
For peace and hope and charity is tight.
The whole of us must fast throughout daylight –
Besides our mouth, our heart and soul must cite
The reasons to refrain from any might
That hurts the others, with whatever slight –
No gossiping, no rumors, lies or bite
Of insult – and, if so, be sure to write
Or say “apologize.” There, from a height,
We know that Allah watches, eyes as bright
As sun and moon, with such a goodness white

With all perfection in the day and night.

For Sameera and Saba, after hearing feedback of Dr. Omar Abdel Kafi’s lecture on Ramadan

`Ramadan and Change © Ron Villejo

Sampaguita

Sampaguita

Curious, an American
Would proclaim officially
Sampaguita national
Flower of the Philippines –
Never mind that it is, too,
Indonesian in its claim.
I suppose a sharing is
Native to a populace
Asian in its skin and soil,
So the sampaguita is
That since 1934.

Beautifying first the night,
White in quiet radiance,
Petals dainty small as strokes
That calligraphy is known,
Blossoming in bundles, though,
As pakikisama is
How it stakes its rightful place
At the top of shrubberies,
Wild and somehow fierce across
Asian landscapes where it will –
Mirroring the people’s soul.

`Sampaguita © Ron Villejo

Beloved, Yours

`Beloved, Yours © Ron Villejo

Ulysses, in James Bond `Skyfall

Dame Judi Dench, as M in the latest James Bond flick `Skyfall, invokes Alfred, Lord Tennyson's heroic poem Ulysses.  The mission of the British Secret Service must not be marginalized, and it must continue, she says with both determination and lyricism.

When You Are Old, in `Bat Eyes Short Film

Teasing gives way to love, in tender turns, courtesy of William Butler Yeats' pensive poem When You are Old.  Originally conceived by Jessica Bellamy, `Bat Eyes speaks to the at once sad and bitter irony of those love turns.

The Raven, in `Evermore Short Film

Evermore, by Biz Stone

Project Imaginat10n is a superb creative effort by Ron Howard and Canon, and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone was among a handful of notables invited to sit in the director's seat.  `Evermore is his directorial debut, inspired by selected photographs from Canon camera users.

Plague Doctor Mask Portrait, by David P

I love the fact that he drew on Edgar Allan Poe's stirringly frightening `The Raven, and I'm sure the photograph above was his main inspiration.