The Filipino memory is a wet one, drenched with the typhoons that make their yearly visit in these isles. In her latest collection of poems, Amina Among the Angels, Merlie Alunan gives us a timely, poignant remembrance of our stormy past. Divided into seven sections, the collection is also the epitome of diversity. The poems offer a myriad of flavors: the bitterness of tragedies, the bland taste of wisdom, the dubious sweetness of remembering departed kin, and the salty taste of humor. In this selection, consistency is sacrificed for variety, yet this is where Alunan's versatility comes to the fore.

      In the palette of poetry, she swings from dark to bright with the adroitness of a maestro. In taking the totality of her work, it is difficult to lump it under just one category. We see strands of feminism, environmentalism, and a thread of the political in Death, Madame, is Supremely Fina Fare. The selection defies categorization, and rebels against stringent labeling.

      The first section Dalagan, Dalagan, Pagtuwad, is a lush commentary on faith, cycles, and folk wisdom. Outstanding pieces story and Siganid Man reveal how marine creatures teach humans their wise ways of faith. Cycles are manifested in her feminist piece "My daughter Anjanette, Growing Up." It is a sorrowful, yet sweet reckoning of farewell and welcome. A daughter's impending adulthood cuts a wide swath between her and her mother, a cause for maternal grief. Untying the apron strings, however, is a process which Alunan also sees as one of joy and anticipation: "my belly hollow as mooncrates would cave back into all its emptied corners/ gladly I reclaim." There is no hypocrisy in those words, only the truthful acknowledgment of the woman's individual freedom which she relinquished during motherhood. The piece ends on a hopeful note: "tomorrow as the hearth cools/i shall sweep the ashes clean/ turn over to dry the water jar/ and in the evening/ light a new fire/ perfume my hair."

      Alunan also echoes the uncertain mercies of nature with Mana Iday's Last Stand, as apt prelude falling under the next section, And the milk dwindles .... The poem is riddled with omens. Old mana iday, the persona, stands guard against the mechanisms of progress, loath to relinquish her remaining oasis in a city slowly overcome by modernization; "She might have known it would take/ more teeth and greater gumption / than she owned to fight this rape... "The next lines are ominous:" Almost, she could conjure the sound,/ down the naked hills, water rushing,/ bearing the mountain's wrath...

      The poems under In Memoriam are outstanding verses of tragedy. The words resonate the gush of floodwaters as Alunan revisits the time when Ormoc disappeared beneath a flood of biblical proportions.

      The Ormoc poems remain relevant as the country's latest visitors, typhoons Iliang and Loleng , have added their footages to the reportage of memory. The past few weeks of October were literally submerged in water, and as TV screens overflowed with scenes of watery death, Song of the Floodwaters plays the lyrics:.."harvest of the waters/ to the town/ from the village/ to the streets/ where the children play/ harvest of the stars/ to feed a hungry ."

      As the news cameras ogled at the horrific scenes, the poet launches a bitter retort against this" boxing -in" of other people's tragedies. In Death, Madame, is Supremely Fine Fare, a calamity is viewed with detachment and with a dubious sense of entertainment. Tragedies are churned out as visual concerts, to be feasted on by the fortunate ones who view the show amidst "fine china, caviar and linen." This they do with no thought as how the survivors might feel: haplessly pinned by the gawking cameras, being intruded upon in the privacy of their sorrow. To be the object of that gaze is infuriating. As Alunan seethes, "... Those videos, Madame/ we never watched, we had our lives to dig out/of the silt..." The poet somehow reminds us of an erstwhile first lady who annoyingly croons her messages of sympathy while wallowing in her luxuries. The symbol of Imelda is the throbbing metaphor of the wealthy ruling powers who misread and dismiss the misfortunate of others.

      Calamity, as always, brings with it the indispensable ingredient of grief. Yet the poet questions grief as an invention of the bereaved, a handy device to cover up guilt. In our grief, we call out to the dead in the hopes of reviving them even in the precarious shelter of reminiscence. The title of the next division tells all: And the dead go nowhere if their stories are unheard. This section contains a single piece, in which Alunan is Calling the Names of departed kin, some of whom were victims of calamity, some she had never even known.

      The pangs of loss are still evident in the next group, Till flesh is done, most striking of which is the poet's bitter reminder of the misfortunes humankind wrought upon itself.

      Traumatized tones speak in a In a Century of Floods, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Wars, the First Order of Business. A somewhat somber testimony to the endurance of the human spirit, Alunan writes, "....We live as ever/among the broken and the maimed - / and how is it, we wonder, that they/ could walk upright like any of us..." But is not living in these "unholy times is danger enough?" To exist, then, is not merely to live, but also to survive.

      After the heavy dose of bleak images, Amina Among the Angels fortunately includes hopeful swatches of life. The last section, You and I, beautiful forever, and deathless, offers a cold drink to wash away the aftertaste of gloom. The final pieces speak in light, almost comical tones, though never losing their sensibility. A poet, whose nights are sacrificed at the altar of her art, finds kindred spirits in Her Neighbor, the Insomnia Birds. The collection also contains a fresh look at the Muse myth, which Alunan tackles with good-natured humor and tints it with feminist hues. We have none of the lunatic worship sessions of the Grecian-robed goddess who supposedly inspires good verse. In Addressing the Muse, she writes, "The Muse, they called you .... stuck you up on a peg/where they could worship you and make as though/ your favors were what made their verse." By viewing it through the feminist telescope, she gives an even more refreshing approach to the subject. She points out to the woman poet who gets by without any help from any fictitious goddess, and unlike men, does not pass the blame to anyone else when confronted by bad verse. The lines drip faintly with good old feminist mockery: "Well, but who knows that better given -- had things been different, half the world's/ genius gone down the drains, it is said,/ with laundry water, or stewed to death/ in the cooking pot...."

      No way could the woman poet down in her stewing pot anymore, as her last piece, Poetry, claims, "So long as it lasts,/ this singing, so long shall we thrive,/ you and I, beautiful forever, and deathless..." This sweet anticipation spells hope -- a much sought-after respite after the cycle of sorrow. The last pages of Amina are stamped with the cycle of grief and joy, and as her book ends with an optimistic air, let us allow ourselves the luxury of believing in happy endings.