Portents & Promises
Echoes of Politics, People, and Places
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
In pathways In more Grudges Verily we note And as with and shudder * * * Why do we enter Every one of us Yesterday Pure and joyful times: Living payoffs: Transitory surprises We are the
similar
others look
to us
and them.
We belong
and they
are foreign.
We are Jews
and they are Arabs.
We are white
and they are black.
We are Muslims
and they, Christians.
And all of those
festivities
speak of
commonalities
we share
in laughter,
while others frown
and watch
detached
like alienated
zombies.
contemporary times
others grieve
and only now,
express all anger
and resentment,
at cruel conquests
and of impositions,
legitimated -
(though the mourners
speak of imperialism,
and painful periods
of colonialism).
never given fruition,
at once,
break loose:
"and one
more blow
before I tire,
in recompense
for all
the hurt,
and all that
looting".
the many whys
and many wherefores.
And with sadness deep
acknowledge crimes
within ourselves
capable,
but yet,
beyond
ourselves.
nature true,
we rise
with the sun
and rest
at dusk.
And from a day
of toil,
and of excitement,
we trudge that
long and narrow
shaded road,
of aged trees
and filtered light,
and introspect,
on acts and incidents,
both bad and good,
of values gained
and lost –
at those things
embarrassing.
We surely,
only see
at dusk.
and linger here?
cannot
totally remember
the entirety
of a lifetime.
The essential center
of our core, our being,
is in the basking
and the relishing
of zestful twinkles.
and today,
reality
lies with fragile moments
folded gently
in our memories.
triumphs earned
gifts of justice
and compassion
gifts of intellect
gifts of faith
acts of kindness
encounters with
clear innocence
and that invigorating picture
of youthful exuberance.
from loving moments
to tender moments
to happy moments.
emotions exhilarating.
Blissful savoring
as in genesis,
of heavenly gardens.
The eden,
the paradise,
elusive
captured only
from moment
to moment.
memory optimists.
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Book Details
About the Book
Portents and Promises: Echoes of Politics, People, and Places is a collection of free verse that encourages reflection and thought. After the devastating attack on the United States on September 11, 2001 - the magnitude of suffering compels humanity to address deeper issues about the human condition. The response of Americans and the majority of the world to the tragedy, highlights the victory of love, of compassion, of caring, of unity and camaraderie - common human traits transcending national boundaries. On the other hand, the mass murder of innocent thousands focus on the acute degree of estrangement, of alienation, "man’s inhumanity to man," urgently felt by disconnected segments of our world’s population. Good over evil, hope over despair, our lives replete with the bliss and the burden of existence. The potential to achieve virtue over vice continually challenges human beings to keep searching for the truth - which the author hopes lies somewhere in the comfortable shade of gray, the moderate, prudent middle ground. The book is about people and places, about ideas and political themes. The author shares the notion that through written and verbal discourse about ideas, emotions, spirituality, philosophy, politics and the ultimate purpose of political activity, people can find meaning and arrive at the civilized political community. When thought and passion strikes the heart and fills the mind, then writing, becomes the pathway out of uncertainty, and into the light.
About the Author
For as long as Estrella Besinga Sybinsky can remember, she has always sought solace in writing when she is "seized and compelled by the moment." She finds comfort in poetry because the avenue allows her to highlight joyful and sad occasions. Struggling with thought enables her to sort out and overcome seemingly irreconcilable emotions and ideas. She sees writing as a process whereby through the stringing of words that convey, what may once be a negative self-absorption, lends itself to a creative result: poetry. The task of turning and directing despondency and negativism into a product that provokes and enkindles thinking, is a positive challenge that the author finds elevating and ennobling. Estrella Besinga Sybinsky is a naturalized Asian American and has taught Political Science courses at several universities across the country. She first came to the United States on a graduate degree scholarship at the East-West Center, a center for technical and cross-cultural interchange between peoples of the east and west, in cooperation with the University of Hawaii. She married a fellow scholar from Pittsburgh and they have two grown daughters. The author and her husband Peter Andrew, have been active in the political and community life in Honolulu, in Marin County of Northern California, and in Indianapolis. The range of her activities include service as delegate to state party conventions, school advisory council, editorial advisory board, committee membership in organizations as the World Affairs council, guest speaking at different community groups, and has published a reader for one of the courses she taught. She finds her lector ministry in every faith community where her family resides, to be the most fulfilling. Estrella Besinga Sybinsky relishes those moments when inspiration summons her to lay everything aside and reach for the paper and pen. She credits her love of words to her mother, a schoolteacher, and her father, a lawyer who has authored several labor law books in the Philippines. Her extended family nurtured and encouraged humor, laughter, and freedom of speech. Thus, her childhood experiences, growing up in a noisy, loving family of six siblings, including the large extended umbrella of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and household helpers, have kept her verbal and written world engaged and spinning. Estrella continues to pass on the tradition of thinking thoughts by writing, to her daughters, Cristina Felice and Andrea Catherine. Sybinsky taught political science at several universities in the United States. The author and her family recently moved to Nashville Tennessee.