Aking Malinis na Kapaligiran

My grand daughter Elaine Gabrielle asked my help to do a poem about the environment for her homework. Three stanzas of four lines each, ten syllables to a line, rhyming last words and in Tagalog. Here's what she came up with:

Ang kapaligiran na malinis

Tulad ng ilog at mga batis,

At masarap ang simoy ng hangin;

Malinis na dagat at buhangin.

Ikaw at ako ay magtulungan

Kaibigan ang kapaligiran.

Mga ibon na nagsisilipad,

Sa umaga ay gumising agad.

Sa bukid ang mga kalabaw

Nasa lubluban buong tag-araw.

Tinulungan pa ako ni Lolo

Kaya natapos din ang tula ko.

Allied Medical Profession

My daughter is super patient with her son. She tries to talk values to him even when he was barely five years old. One day she asks "What would you want to be son?"

"A race car driver, Mom," says he, much to my daughter's disappointment. If I were there, I would have gone along with that early choice of a career; I wouldn't mind a Michael Schumacher Besides, what do kids know about careers at such an early age?

But there's no way my daughter who has the patience of Job and the persistence of Abraham negotiating for Sodom and Gomorrah would abandon the cause. "Wouldn't you rather be a doctor?"

"No Mom. I don't want to be a doctor; I want to be a race car driver," he maintains with resoluteness and the battle lines are drawn between mother and son.

"You know son," his mother says, still with her very persuasive ways, "you can help people if you become a doctor. You can cure the sick of their illness, help old people."

"Okay Mom. I'll drive an ambulance."

Photo: NEED A RIDE by Olivier Agustin