My Favorite Lessons to discuss

English Demonstration
Author's Acknowledgment
Man of Earth
December 16, 2008 by Miss N comments 27
bambu
The title of this post is the title of one of my favorite poems when I was in high
school. I remember writing a short essay around the theme of the poem for an
essay writing contest. What I cannot remember now is how I fared at the contest
hehehe. Anyway, I found the poem again among my notes as I was going over the
content of my baul last night.

Man of Earth was written by Amador T. Daguio. He was only 20 when he wrote
this one. Here is the poem:
 Man of Earth
Pliant is the bamboo;
I am a man of earth;
They say that from the bamboo
We had our first birth.

Am I of the body,
Or of the green leaf?
Do I have to whisper
My every sin and grief?
 If the wind passes by,
Must I stoop and try
To measure fully
My flexibility?

I might have been the bamboo,

But I will be a man.
Bend me then, O Lord,
Bend me if you can.
 Could Daguio have been thinking of today’s time when he wrote the
poem? This is what I like about the element of timelessness in poetry.
This poem was written in 1932 but it reflects the plight of Filipinos
today. It tells us how we, Filipinos, should face the seemingly endless
challenges in today’s world.

Truly, the Filipinos should be as pliant as the bamboo. As the wind of

economic crisis, tragedies, and political crisis blow, we should humbly
stoop—we should bend, adjust, try to cope, try to survive. At the same
time, we should stand on our own ground—firm, bold, brave, and
daring. Patuloy sana tayong makibaka sa buhay kahit minsan mahirap
gawin.
 Flaming Lyre
God gave a flaming lyre and said,
“Play this with golden care,”
“May I play, God, with my words instead,”
I said, “to do my share?”

“No,you must play the flaming lyre,

You words are not yet good”,
“But how shall I touch your strings of fire,”
I asked, “to get the mood?”
“Just pluck your heartbeats, boy,” He said,
“And pluck the things you see,
And you will find how strings are fed
By the sounds that come from me,”
 Then God returned to His Home in the sky,
And I tried His flaming lyre,
And wonders! when sounds did fly,
They were words of my desire!

Since then I have played and played strange ____

And when I listen well,
The words dance as if their music floats
From the soul of God's magic bell.
Kinds of Sentence
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