December 19, 2019--- our 60th wedding anniversary. Not a single day I don't think about you and remember with daily prayers. Still missing you.

MEMORIES OF W.D. NOLLEDO's COURTSHIP

2011,
December 19 this year marks our 52nd wedding anniversary, which my children and I still observe even though my husband, Novelist Wilfrido D. Nolledo (of But for the Lovers, Cadena de Amor and Other Short Stories, available at Amazon. com)  has been gone for seven years. Ding, as he was known to family and friends, passed away barely completing his last novel, A Capella Dawn.

I usually tend to escape a revisit to the past as it brings back images both joyful and lonely.  Was it Alfred Tennyson who said ""A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier times"? But I dug up recently this lovely letter from a dear friend while I was sorting old letters from Ding and from close friends. It's from Cora Bisogno, the former Cora Cloma, who was my maid-of-honor at my wedding. It was supposed to have been read during our celebration of our 40th wedding anniversary in 1999 when Ding was still up and about. Cora, however, got tied up with her public relations work in New York and could not come to share  the day with us. So, she did the next best thing she could do: send us this letter to be read during the party celebration. Cora is a  writer herself but like many of us in our circle of friends who were diverted to other occupations, strayed away from a writing career.

 Here is her own recollection of my campus romance with Ding at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila when Ding, newly graduated from the College of Philosophy and Letters (Philet) and I, on the other hand, still a babe in the woods and poet wannabe, fresh from high school, met through a mutual college friend who submitted my first short story to Ding. Those were the years when male and female students went through separate corridors in our university but, strangely, met in co-ed classrooms. (When I think of it now, it really seems so useless, those separate corridors. I don't know if it's still done now.)  Even stranger perhaps to outsiders is the fact that  quite a few campus romances somehow bloomed and  thrived in that university despite the strict rules of the Dominican priests. As a matter of fact, a favorite joke during one of our early reunions decades ago was the dictum that the Philet College, especially, was a happy hunting ground for the right mate. A few I can recall that ended at the altar were  Recah Trinidad (to become the famous sportswriter and columnist) and Fe Lacsamana; Neal Cruz (now a long-time columnist/writer) and Marina Novenario; Meny Heernandez (who became a consul) and Yoly Canseco (now a retired GSP National Director); Writer Gerry Umengan and Vilma Dagasuan (to become a magazine editor); Ernie Franco and Cherry Santamaria, summa cum laude of her batch; Rey Vidal and Lou Hernandez; Tony Siddayao and Maricruz Prada; and Eli Molina and Nelly Balthazar; and of course, Wilfrido Nolledo and yours truly.

Well, perhaps, our dean, the Rev. Alfredo Panizo, O.P., didn't do a good job guarding us; in fact, we considered him a consintodor and we loved him for it, of course. Ding had called on me at our home, but we also met right in the Dean's office during my vacant hours, sat at the long conference table there and chatted right under Father Panizo's scrutinizing eyes, he whose  office desk was just a few feet away. But he kept our confidences, yes, our beloved dean. (He eventually officiated at our wedding; who else could we have asked?) Maybe, it was his way of looking after his college children; would rather have them in the safety of our school than have them indulge in secret assignations outside. We had a good faculty, too: Manuel Viray, later to become ambassador; Erlinda Rustia, whose respect we coveted despite her stinging verdict to those she thought were not called to be writers ("If you cannot write, go enroll at the School of Hair Science," addressed to male students thus eliciting giggles from some); Julia Palarca, later to become ambassador; sweet and bedimpled Pity Guinto-Rosales; Primi Cervania (our Spanish professor behind whom we snickered when she would stick to Spanish even when we kept asking one another "what the heck is she talking about"? And Menchit Rocha, a Chabacano from Cebu, would translate roughly Ms. Cervania's Castilian Spanish.

Those were days when courtship was so pristine and virginal that the unbridled generation of today would sadly frown upon. Yet, with Ding and myself, it was a period of getting-to-know each other and sowing the seeds of a deeper relationship beyond the physical and temporary. So, when in the following recollection of Cora, she asks "why did your marriage withstand the test of time," I'll add to her answers that it must have been those school years that we "occupied" the dean's office during my vacant period and had long talks about practically everything under the sun. In baring to me his heart, his dreams, his pains, his art, Ding impressed me with his depth. Here was  a man who did not laugh at other people's mistakes or weird appearance, who had compassion and felt the pain of a suffering world, who worked hard (he was already working then) and was willing to give of himself to people he loved, and most of all, knew how to love and respect his mother.( If you want to know the character of a man, I was told, observe how he treats his mother.) Even in youth, somehow I was attracted to those values, and at that time of my young life,I don't remember having found them in the men I had known, probably because of their own youth and still developing personhood. But what touched me most was the seriousness with which Ding pursued me, yet never forcing me to do anything against my moral beliefs.
Here's Cora telling a part of that chapter in my life. I'm sharing it for whatever insights the youth of today may gain from it. Inserts in italics are mine.

MEMORIES OF DING'S COURTSHIP, an excerpt from a letter from Corazon Cloma Bisogno to Ding and Blanca on their 40th wedding anniversary.

It's amazing to realize that you've been married 40 years! I know few couples who have remained together that long. My parents' marriage ended after 18 years and my own marriage lasted only three years  ...You and Ding are blessed to have met in this lifetime. Time may play tricks with my memory, clouding details of remembrances... So, forgive me if I don't do justice to our joint histories.

...We were in college when we met Ding. I believe we were sophomores when you noticed him.  I think he attended one of our classes--he was a senior or had graduated already and in fact was in the graduate school at the time. He was the literary editor of the Blue Quill, our college journal--that's how we met him; we submitted poems. (Unknown to Cora and my other gangmates, Ding had been writing letters to me already even before that. I was to take over as literary editor of the Blue Quill two years after, and Ding moved on to become the  literary editor of the Varsitarian, the university organ.)

I remember Prof. Erlinda Rustia raving about Ding. He was a big man on campus, soon to become a major national writer... When I met you, I thought you would enter the convent later and become a nun. You were really so pure of heart and deeply spiritual. I had been a postulant in the convent for a year, so I knew I wasn't one of those called, but I thought you were.  (Was this perspective elicited by my daily visits to our university chapel together with another close friend, Nene Marquinez (now Navarro), with whom I prayed the rosary during our vacant period?) Imagine my surprise and delight when you were becoming interested in Ding.

Your courtship was very quiet and private, both of you being quiet and private persons. How wonderfully astute Ding was to have an insight into your character and soul. With so many attractive and equally talented girls around, he saw your true beauty and looked into your beautiful heart and fell deeply in love. Being shy, you did not gush openly about your feelings, but I knew you were in love, because you spoke much about how kind and gentle and brilliant Ding was. You related the gist of your conversations you two had about literature, philosophy and the arts and subtly gave me a picture of a strong yet gentle man who could dominate a conversation, yet brought out the artist in you as well. Your eventual marriage was a foregone conclusion.

Your lovers' tiffs were brief little incidents that served merely to spice the relationship, add a little excitement and color, perhaps to ensure that a future life together will be interesting and perhaps bring some scintillating challenges. They were perhaps reminders that you were both, afterall, artists with the requisite temperaments to watch out for. The quick darting looks Ding would throw your way when we would accidentally (or were they really accidental?) encounter him on campus or in hallways, were eloquent expressions of his affection. I was thrilled as a happy spectator. (Wow, Cora, I didn't know you took notice of all of that.) How you would shyly avoid looking directly at him, hiding your emotions even from us who knew. How young and innocent we all were.

Your wedding day itself is a hazy memory now, as I have seen so many weddings of family and friends in the eternity of 40 years...  All I can remember is that you were a pair who looked perfect together and everybody  had a sense of that "happily ever after" feeling...
(Ah, walking down the  aisle in a traje de boda designed and sewn by no less than the genius poet and dramatist Rolando Tinio, later to become a Philippine National Artist, and Ding in his immaculately white suit I suspected he felt uncomfortable in because he hated formal suits so.)

I felt I was embarking on a new relationship of having to share your friendship with Ding. But I was very happy for you. Now all I had to do was wait to become an extended member of your new family as an "aunt" to your future children. We kept in touch. You did not allow our friendship to become a casualty of your new life... then Ding received a grant from the U.S. Embassy to come and study in America. (Ding was actually invited to the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, that was followed by four consecutive grants.) With children you were off to a new adventure of raising a growing family as Ding's writing career flourished.. Then our paths led to different directions as I myself immigrated later to America and started a new life.  Years later we reconnected when you had a brief stint here in New York as an associate editor. W have continued communicating with each other since then though you had gone back to California to be with your children and then to Manila to get Ding to join your children.

Why did your marriage withstand the test of time? It is not just love you have for each other but respect and friendship as well. Even as you raised your children, Ding and you have been partners who have kept pace with each other. Perhaps you compromised a little by encouraging his career more than yours, but your reward has been his love and loyalty to you. You share common interests, you have grown and evolved together. You continue to fascinate each other. You are true to yourselves and live very simply. Our friendship is like your marriage, in a way. It doesn't go out of style. Forty years later, I have no doubt we can pick up where we left off the last time we saw each other, for we would still hold similar interests and values.

So, congratulations as you celebrate with your children, grandchildren and friends. I regret I cannot be there to share your joy. But my thoughts and my love are with you.
                                                                                                              Cora

Goodness sake, am finding myself multi-tasking again: changing my mind on what to include in the book, publisher inquiring if I have finished it, revising no end and (time is running out), Ateneo's Karina asking for WDN's mss., dealing with an avalanche of mail, jittery about our Purisima youngsters' speeches for the Ring Ceremony this weekend, property tax to pay, car registration, HOA raising monthly assessment (group demanding protest that I will just have to let go)---challenges never end. But that's probably what keep us going.

Desert Wind

Found in My Treasure Trove of Poems

1                                           DESERT  WIND      

 Time was when I sucked victuals of my 

   rain forest; a garland of bounty festooned 

  my tree of life. Scent that blew garden   

  fresh: how it renewed the pallid blood,

  the sagging flesh! Such splashes of colors 

  to grace the meadow of my heart: 

  my soul brimmed with fibers, manna.

  But the wind struck: oh such fiendish 

  sweep that devoured all, all that I fed on: 

  the habitat of my ancestors, mirrors of 

  my past, the greenness of my universe.

  Now its silence turns into searing scourge

  that shrivels the spring of my dreams 

  and crumples the core of my soul.

  

   Sun of man, why do you burn my being? 

   The grass curdled into brown, children hide.

   Dry is my sea of lore, 

   Shredded the tapestry of my life.

   You leave me with nothing, nothing,

   not even the remains of the night 

   to lull me in the arms of Morpheus.

                            By  Blanca Datuin

(Revised March, 2010.  Originally published 2008 in the Iowa Daily Palette, online publication of the University of Iowa)

REPOSTING THESE REFLECTIONS AS WE ARE REMINDED OF THE HUMILITY OF THE PUBLICAN IN TODAY'S GOSPEL October 27, 2019, 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

October 9, 2011
Many days there are in our daily life when we witness kindness and humility of those who rank higher than we are and at other times, of ordinary people like us. In today's bustling world, when everyone, it seems, is glued to one's cellphone chatting no end, or eyes focused on iphones--whoever takes notice of the kindness of strangers, the nobility of a humble act? Golden nuggets passed by unnoticed, taken for granted, ignored as though insignificant acts. No big deal, one would say. Yet, they are, at least to me. As a poet once said, how beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it, (and a simple act of humility, I must add, raises it to one of nobility).

Yesterday I witnessed something that touched my heart and later, when I was alone and recalled it, brought a lump in my throat and felt humbled by it. It was our parish' day of receiving the statue of Our Lady of Fatima  for the Living Rosary Crusade that has been going around the world to pray for world peace. After a few days of intermittent downpour, the morning suddenly shone with perfect brightness. How good is the Divine Providence to let the sun shine to welcome Mary's devotees. As  I was busy doing my tasks of greeting the  throng of parents and youngsters and distributing the day's program, I noticed some parishioners staring at some feces down the church steppe, which  I could only guess was left by a child who couldn't hold it anymore. Not wearing a Pamper in this age of throw-aways? Or, could it have been dung left by some pets? Because, earlier there were a lot of animals brought by their owners for the annual Blessing of the Animals Day ceremony out in the church patio. I didn't see the actual act of emission, so I had no way of knowing.

Anyway, two thoughtful persons tried to cover the waste with tissue paper while the rest just stood, staring at it like a sacred piece of clay. Father Preston Passos, our parish administrator, happened to be passing  by perhaps to start greeting the church-goers and seeing about the organizing tasks. Seeing what everyone was staring at, he went back to the rectory and and returned in no time, dustpan and broom in hand. Without much ado, he scooped the unwanted specimen, threw it away in the trash and wiped the remains with paper towel.  Then and only then did a parish personnel standing by came to the rescue and took over. But it took our beloved pastor to initiate it. Here is the perfect picture of a man of God in his black priestly cassock bending to do the task everyone else appeared helpless to accomplish.

I don't know how many other times Father Preston had shown such kindness and humility (perhaps it's second nature to him), but I can mention another occasion.  Parish desk person Patty Yaque and I were struggling to hang up a class banner on one side of the fence facing our parish school street. Classes had not begun and thus, no student was around to help us. The parish maintenance officer was already gone; so was the gardener. Poor Patti Yaque  was the only one left to help me as Father Rodolfo had suggested. Then out of nowhere came the Rev. Preston who would be the last person I would ask for help, knowing how knee-deep he is in dealing  with an avalanche of  paperwork as our church administrator. Patti must have told him we would be out there to hang a banner as a way of explaining her absence at the desk she was supposed to man. Quietly, without a word, Father Preston stretched the banner, tied to the fence one end as Patty, up in a ladder,  held the other end. (No, Father Preston, being tall, didn't need a ladder.) In a jiffy, the job was finished,  and after expressing satisfaction about the banner, he walked back to the Rectory to attend to what I imagined his flood of paperwork.

October 10, 2011

Today is my RCIA class at Our Lady of Peace. At exactly 8:30 A.M., all my students were there at the entrance of the parish convent where we were supposed to hold the class. It was a joy seeing them come en masse like that because it's not every Sunday all are in full attendance. Melissa, Ricardo, Rosie, Guadalupe, Janet, Mario. The Holy Spirit heard my prayer to call them. We strutted to our usual room, feeling buoyed by the enthusiasm of my adult catechumens.  Then we discovered our room locked. I went out to look for the maintenance supervisor . Surely he must have the key. No he didn't. He tried each of his bunch of keys and not a single one would fit. We tried another room. No luck. We went upstairs, and lo, one was luckily opened.  But no chairs, though later, somehow, one chair came into full view from a corner. I went to the other room where another RCIA class (for youngsters) was being conducted. I asked the catechist in charge if we could borrow some six empty chairs we noticed in her room. She might have latecomers, she said, and she needed the chairs.

Ah, never mind, I told my catechumens, we'll survive standing. "We can sit on the floor," they all chimed in. Great. Did you know that students of the ancient philosophers didn't have a classroom and they just sat under the tree, I asked. Well, at least we're inside a home, with a roof over our heads. That brought smiles on their faces. I would have wanted to sit on the floor myself were it not for the fact that being a septuagenarian,  they would have difficulty getting me up. So, to spare them that I accepted the one chair that somehow materialized from a corner. But the image of the group sitting on the floor and listening intently to the Word of God and the story of Jesus that we can meditate on when we pray the Holy Rosary (our topic for the day, October being the month of the Holy Rosary), was so exhilarating and gratifying indeed. How lovely and loving is the Holy Spirit working on us!  We prayed: "Thank you, Lord, for this gathering  and this opportunity to sit on the floor to offer our love in response to Your call. As we go back to our mundane lives, don't let us lose this experience of Your gift that we share with others. Continue to guide us in our faith journey, O  Holy Spirit, that we may respond in the same generous and humble ways that your followers had done before. "  - Blanca Datuin
(Our Pastoral Associate, Rosie Hernandez, apologized later for not having our usual room open for the class and thanked us for keeping our spirits up despite having to sit on the floor. No problem, Ms. Rosie, it gave us opportunity to offer more to the Lord. No use to fritter away our emotions over such small things.)

This is worth sharing with parents who have youngsters (male or female), young adults, those in relationships or anyone else in that vulnerable situation needing to be empowered, which is what my ministry Purisima Fellowship focuses on, with spiritual development and skills training in meeting the challenges of the present culture.

Virginity pledge comes with a ring
by David Bario, Columbia News Service CHICAGO TRIBUNE 

Lots of parents wish they could keep a constant eye on their teenage kids. Jack McLemore, a Mississippi jeweler, came up with an alternative for his daughter Carrie. In the platinum ring he made for Carrie when she was 13, two sapphires represent his watchful eyes, guarding her virginity until the day she marries.Carrie has been wearing the ring every day since. At 17, she is proud to say that she hasn't let her father down."I believe sex is meant for marriage," said Carrie, an actress who lives in Manhattan with her mother. I want to save myself emotionally and physically for whoever I spend the rest of my life with.… 

Often motivated by religious faith and by government-funded abstinence programs, more than one in eight American adolescents has made a virginity pledge, sociologists have found. But experts on teen sexuality say that, ring or no ring, most teens will break their pledge before they tie the knot. A ring at age 12…Paige stood before her congregation at a purity-ring ceremony at their Southern Baptistchurch in Chino, Calif., and read from the book of Timothy: "Flee also youthful lust, but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Resist temptation." 

Other young people decide to wear purity rings in high school or college, when many of their peers are flaunting their sexuality and opting for belly-button rings instead. Sam Chey was a sophomore in college when he participated in a four-week course organized by True Love Waits, a national abstinence organization that distributes purity rings to students. His friends on the wrestling team were having sex. Chey saw abstinence as a way to rebel.Now a 25-year-old English teacher in northwest New Jersey, Chey prefers the name "chastity ring"; for the silver band he wears on his left hand. Because it looks like a wedding ring, it's almost like a safeguard"; said Chey, a devout Catholic. "If a woman comes up to me, her first thought isn't that I might be available for sex."

Purity rings also are popular among secondary virgins;" the abstinence movement namefor people who already have had sex but have made a pledge to give it up until marriage.When he got his purity ring through his Baptist church at 17, Robert Stewart was no virgin.Seven years later, Stewart has a girlfriend who shares his commitment to wait and is working to promote abstinence in Philadelphia, though he says it hasn't been easy. I'm a regular, healthy young guy," Stewart said. But my ring is like a promise I made to myself.

Good read in fighting the sex culture among unmarried that's fast spreading like fire. With it is also the spread of sex-related diseases.

Friar Alessandro - Panis Angelicus

Continuing a Journey of Service

Offerings to the Lord will never be enough to match His love.  Bringing  the Holy Eucharist to some forty patients in two convalescent facilities every month, spreading His Word as I lector, administering Holy Communion Sundays as Eucharistic Minister, sharing the teachings of Christ in my catechism class, and empowering the youth and young adults in the ministry I organized and now coordinate:  Is all that sufficient to repay the  love He poured on us by dying on the Cross to save us? Can you imagine Heaven being opened to us after His death? Ah, what a glorious recompense!

But the Lord has called me to more. As I stopped my car's engine in the parking lot of my parish one morning, the office manager knocked on my glass window, and as I opened it, said, in a desperate tone, "Blanca, we need your help." It turned out one of the new priests in our parish needs English, which, as a Portuguese, he never had the need to master among all the other languages he learned aside from his own native language. He's new in America and of course, should be able to communicate with his flock in the language most in the country speak. So, this is the answer of God when I asked a few days ago, "Lord, what else do you want me to do?" What a privilege to help this beloved Shepherd of God. I dream of the day he will be able to say mass in English to reach his English speaking congregation.

I have retired from teaching ESL as a credentialed instructor of Los Angeles Unified District. I just continued as the volunteer coordinator and teacher of the parish outreach program, which I organized, by the way, 20 years ago. For more than two years, Rev. Michael Perucho and I had searched for somebody to take over this job, since I really wanted to retire from the Program after handling it for those many years. But it seems, there is no such word as retirement for one that God is still letting to walk this earth and to serve. So, here I am, Lord. Just lead me and do not let me get weary.

THROUGH THE YEARS

THROUGH THE YEARS:

PANIS ANGELICUM

I ever tire of listening to FriarAlessandro sing this:

Panis angelicus
fit panis hominum;
Dat panis cœlicus
figuris terminum:
O res mirabilis!
Manducat Dominum
Pauper, servus et humilis.

Te trina Deitas
unaque poscimus:
Sic nos tu visita,
sicut te colimus;
Per tuas semitas
duc nos que tendimus,
Ad lucem quam inhabitas.

Bread of the Angels
Is made bread for mankind;
Gifted bread of Heaven
Of all imaginings the end;
Oh, thing miraculous!
This body of God will nourish
the poor, the servile, and the humble.

Thee Triune God,
We beseech;
Do us Thou visit,
Just as Thee we worship.
By Thy ways,
lead us where we are heading,
to the light Thou dwellest in.

MIRACLES AND SCIENCE

• Apropos some miracles I have experienced and posted in this blog before, here's an addendum: "Naturalistic scientists presuppose that the universe is structured and follows rational physical laws which can be determined by experimentation and observation. The Bible actually teaches this concept. But why is there constancy in the universe and why does it follow rational laws? Because there is a Creator, because God is logical and has imposed order on the universe. The universe obeys laws because God established them. And God has given us the capability for these laws to be discovered by man; God created our mind—we are made in His image. God also wants us to search out knowledge and understanding. (Proverbs 1:5, 4:7, 16:16, 23:23, 25:2). Does this of necessity mean that science must exclude the miraculous? Since God is capable of creating the universe and establishing the natural laws which govern it, would He not also be able to supersede those laws occasionally when He chooses? It is illogical to think that God could create the universe out of nothing but then would be powerless over it."

TO BE HUMAN

     Reposting this old poem of mine in the wake of the Sri Lanka suicide bombing that killed hundreds of Christians         


TO BE HUMAN

  

The thing hoods his head and shrouds his face

Scared to let others know the real him.

Would he let us see the contour of his soul?

Beloved earthling, why do you hide behind 

a black shade? Is your face so accursed 

it glowers beyond my nightmare?  

 What kind of god tells you to behead  

One who touched not a single strand 

Of your hair?

What power sets your mind to mangle

a world so lovingly shaped by the one

true God, then rend yourself to pieces?

What vileness breaks your fragile brain

And turns your humanness into a chimera?

Oh, that you would wake up ,

Would that you look to the sun and lift the veil,

Shake off the shackles and behold

The heroic wresting lives from dragon.

Breathe in the fresh scent of flowers,

Cradle a  baby, nurse a wounded soldier.

See, the sky bends to kiss the sea.

Sun gleams resplendent if you let it in.

See the you that is human and beautiful

With all the fullness of your splendor.

                            - Blanca Datuin, (c) 2008

Obituary n Loneliness

OBITUARY

Poring over death notices is addictive.

Do I know any on this earth, heard of

those morphed into dust to fly with

the swaying clouds on a last voyage?

How had they lived, what cut that final

breath mourned by wrenched hearts?

The poet that surpassed ultimate in arts 

to live on through eternity in fame, 

giants, players of field, rising to mount peaks

victors climbing the height of glory,

building towers of sky height, beyond Babel.

Jetting to the moon, what else is there to conquer?

Plethora of lives gone fill pages of print.

Countless leaving this world crowned with 

laurels, names hallowed. Such recherché du

temps perdu,leaving memories to live on

behind the thicket of drying leaves as

cowslip bows its head at sunset’s last colors.

When time comes to claim this soul, what then?

Aura popularis,when did a sniff of it come?

Naked I saw the light, crown of glory ne’er

intruded, a speck of luster ne’er passed

through my window. I leave this world still 

naked as yesterday, will slip away sans 

trumpet to beat the dirge, only my dog moaning,

whiff of jasmine in air, languid sky kissing sun, 

my creed and eucharist to whet tongue,

ah, sweet oblation. Feathery light flying.

handmaid I serve, servant I go, to 

meet my master where sun never sets.

                                    -blanca datuin

  © 2014, revised 2018

LONELINESS

What night is free from goblins that yoke 

yesterday’s web, laughter, joys, sorrows 

strung together to face agonies of 

a writhing world? We dance your song

our song, locked together in shadows

that gilded the memory.

The lull lynches when day is over.

The lump leaves not, like a stubborn 

stone to prey upon a surviving soul.

Hark, my angel, where is the comfort 

for this mortal body aching to fly skies

to snow-white swaying clouds that 

carry to bliss that never ends.

Crawl out of this cavern of loneliness,

and end this wait for stalactites to melt,

when cobwebs of memories return

to claw at your heart. Fetters must

be cut loose to see sun kissing the light.

                                    ©2012, revised 2018