Poet, servant of the people. How you served plates of rice and fish and poetry that stuck to the mind and nourished the heart in a place called Manilatown. Your love for the elders of our community was always true. You served the food of love and compassion amidst those who would come and pluck away at the bones, never compromising your love. Uncle Al–Filipino poet, Filipino-American poet who took a stand by sitting with our elders and talking with them, honoring their stories. Filipino ako, you wrote–I am Filipino. You never forgot the faces of your community, the sounds, the laughter, the pain, the suffering–the poetry of life. You said that as a poet, you’d much rather have the pain, the suffering–that you would not trade all the bad experiences for all the good ones. Uncle Al, y ou knew how to love, your poetry was love, your hands were love, your eyes were love as you walked the streets of our community, never forgetting the poor, the elders, those who suffer. We live in a society that doesn’t know how to love. You were an example of this, an example of community. We need you, we need your love. You lived in poetry, poetry was your life. You captured the community in your poetry:
I have lived
so far
so much
knowing their lives
living in the same rooms
as small as tea pots
in J-Town
in Chinatown
in Manilatown
The old flats converted
broken up
into individual rooms
tiny kitchens…
concentrations camps
after the war
they come back home
in the saddness of
a thousand winter snows
they can fill
a hundred thousand
snowcrane diaries
Happy birthday Uncle Al. We love you. We need you, we need your love and your poetry. As you always said: Our poetry is the best part of our struggle, our struggle is the best part of our poetry.
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