Flores de Mayo
by Rudy Arizala
In the Philippines, May is the month of flowers (Flores de Mayo), of sweet roses and ilang-ilang, sampaguita and dama de noche. It is the month of mellow sunshine, wild green and fragrant freshness. After the first summer rain, May suddenly transforms the countryside into a rich lushness and a riot of sparkling of colors. The rice fields, now neatly harvested of their palay, break out with the wild flowers of the grass. The bula-ag (fire tree), having shed its tiny leaves, is aflame with color. No wonder the earth parched by the relentless April sun springs alive with glee with the first drops of May rain.
With the advent of May, can the Santacruzan be far behind? Of course not. Fragrant and fresh flowers are gathered by the young and offered to the Sweet Virgin Mary, along with May songs and prayers. In my small town, May is a month of dancing and prayers, with scintillating parties, leaping from one barrio to another, held after the flower offerings and prayers.
May is when boy meets girl, when the beautiful girls from the barrios bloom as prettily as the flowers. And when two decide to become one, a wedding follows in June. At that, what month is more appropriate for courtship, for merrymaking and thanksgiving? May time, when the harvest has been put away and the fields are allowed to lay fallow for a while before the next plowing. It is a time for great stirrings beneath the earth and within the breast.
To the simple and hardworking folk of the soil, May is a respite from the long, backbreaking task of plowing, harrowing, transplanting the seedlings, readying the paddies and dikes and sowing of the seeds of sustenance. In between planting and loving care given to the young green stalks so they may in their season bear fruit, the tillers go out to the sea in their bancas to collect their share of the sea's bounty. For when they go back to the fields, there will be few moments for merrymaking.
Except perhaps for an occasional baptism party, wedding or fiesta, life for the people of my hometown, especially for the barrio folks, is a recurring pattern, like the passing of the season &emdash; one of the soil for the new seedlings, and soon enough the harvesting. Then it starts all over once more. But before it does, we have May, the month of flowers, of fragrance beauty, love, courtship and prayers.
To her native sons and daughters, Infanta is a beautiful town even if it seems slow in making progress. Many of Infanta's sons and daughters have left her to find their fortune or particular place in the sun elsewhere, but it is not a final breakaway. At least once a year, they go home again. If they are exiled in distant lands like me, they call to mind the Infanta of blue mountains and sea, of long stretches of white sand, unpolluted clear rivers and springs, of green rice paddies and swamp lands, of tall slender coconut trees and beautiful flowers. They remember the simplicity of the townsfolk, their songs sometimes sad and brooding, sometimes happy and warm. And what they really remember or return to is May time.
This May, and every May of the years to come, I will remember Infanta, the Santacruzan and the fragrant flowers, the innocent joy and the simple life, and the abiding faith in God and in the Blessed Virgin Mary.
-- Labong ng Kawayan 2002