Wednesday, January 14, 2009

WINDMILLS ON MY MIND

The email came like a jolt. I have been awarded a fellowship to attend a 3-month course in the Maastricht School of Management. I was to leave on January 16. But there are other things to do and I won’t be seeing the windmills of The Netherlands. I emailed my regrets while Alison Moyet crooned the ballad of tortured emotions as the windmills on my mind spiraled in a circle down an endless tunnel of jangling disappointment…



Round, like a circle in a spiral,
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning,
Running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind.

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind.

Keys that jingle in your pocket,
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that you said?
Lovers walk along the shore
And leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway
And the fragment of a song
Half-remembered names and faces,
But to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over,
You were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the colour of her hair

A circle in a spiral,
A wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind,
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
--- WINDMILLS ON YOUR MIND by Noel Harrison


Profile: The Church of Mabini, Pangasinan


The Augustinan Recollects established the ecclessiastical mission of Balincaguin at around 1610. However, there are currently no accounts about its parochial buildings until 1858 when Fr. Mariano Torrente started repairing an extant church. More repair work was done in 1893 by Fr. Epifanio Vergara. Balincaguin was renamed Mabini after the "Sublime Paralytic" after the Philippines declared independence from Spain in 1898. The church suffered damages during an earthquake in 1999 and has since been repaired.

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