Boracay Chronicles Day 02.
The Poem in My Mind.

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It is my second day in Boracay today. Woke up very early in the morning, had a breakfast of cereals and fresh orange juice. I made it a point to be up early as the beach is most beautiful before nine o'clock in the morning, where there is only the sun, the sand and sea to greet you. The island at its purest. Tourists are still asleep, tired from the previous day's swimming or last night's partying. Soon, the beach will be full of people. But at seven thirty in the morning, it is the best time to hit the beach.

I rallied the kids out of bed. They were very cooperative as they were very excited to have another chance to swim. We only had a about two hours of swimming yesterday, which when one is eight or eleven years old, is not long enough. They were quickly in their new Speedos that I bought for this trip. Goggles and snorkling tube checked, we walked out of the hotel to Station 1.

We went to the area in front of the expansive private property I suspect is owned by businessman Fred Elizalde and his wife, prima ballerina Lisa Macuja-Elizalde. The spot was ideal as there weren't many algae on the water and there are tall trees with thorough branches to serve as our shed. I swam for about thirty minutes and then quickly returned to the beach for some rest.

Just sitting on the beach, I was able to take in and digest the beauty of the beach. I was quickly reminded of why I returned to Boracay for a second time in less than three months.

The beach was silent. There was only the sound of the waves touching the beach, of children playing and mothers hollering empty warnings to their children. Occasionally, a local would approach me to ask if I wanted to go island hopping, or try the banana boat. But all in all, there was only me, the white sand, the sun, the waves and solitude. Most importantly, solitude.

Looking at the long stretch of the white beach and feeling myself one with it, a particular poem instantly came to mind. It is a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay that I read excerpted in Vanity Fair back in 2002. The moment I read the poem back then, I instantly made a connection with it. I have read it for about a hundred times and have committed its words to memory. I began to recite it, silently. While doing so, I imagined myself writing my name in the sand, as the speaker in the poem did.

Paris April 1st, 1922

A mile of clean sand.

I will write my name here, and the trouble

that is in my heart.

I will write the date & place of my birth,

What I was to be,

And what I am.

I will write my forty sins, my thousand follies,

My four unspeakable acts....

I will write the names of the cities I have

fled from.

The names of the men & women I have

wronged.

I will write the holy name of her I serve,

And how I serve her ill.

And I will sit on the beach & let the tide

come in.

I will watch with peace the great calm

tongue of the tide

Licking from the sand the unclean story of

my heart.

Like me, Millay is bisexual. She is as known for her poems as she was for her affairs with men and women from high society. When this comparison hit me, it put a brief smile on my face. Was Millay in the same situation when she wrote the poem? Was she sitting on a beach as beautiful as Boracay when this poem came to her? What were the forty sins, thousand follies and four unspeakable acts that worried her? Do we have the same sins, follies and unspeakable acts? I could only wonder.

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After the tide has erased the unclean story of my heart that, in my mind, I wrote on the pure vast shore of Boracay, I put on my goggles and ran to hit the waves once more. I don't know, but I felt lighter than before. It was as if all guilts and worries were left on shore ----or erased by the imaginary tide.

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It was the best two hours I have ever spent in the water.

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