Jeepney Press
May - June 2025
Yellowbelle Duaqui
Pope Francis, to me, was not just a Pope I see and hear on TV, the Internet or the newspapers.
One time, he even appeared in my dreams, making my connection to him very personal,
psychological and spiritual.
During the pandemic, I had a dream of Pope Francis sitting on a rocking chair in a room that felt
to be a part of my own house. Behind him was a window – and I saw a black bat trying to break
into the window.
Waking up after this dream, I pondered on what it meant. In my view, Pope Francis symbolized
goodness while the bat stood for evil. Having seen Pope Francis peacefully seated on the
rocking chair inside the room in my dream, I interpret it to be that my heart is aligned with
what is good. But the bat outside the window felt like an ominous warning that evil is always
prowling around, waiting to pounce.
The dream felt like a warning to me about the constant tug of war between good and evil. It
was so comforting to realize, in the end, that good will always defeat evil. But it won’t come
easy because evil will always try to cause mayhem.
Protecting one’s soul during a time of so much social media distraction, the overwhelming grief
and sadness caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and financial difficulties caused by the
lockdowns, is indeed a challenge. I had to cling to habitual prayer to draw strength from God to
be able to face the challenges hurled my way that time.
When I heard about Pope Francis’s passing after Easter Sunday 2025, I was deeply saddened
because I know how the world looked at his example and leadership, which came like a breath
of fresh air in empty cathedrals deserted by the faithful due to increasing secularism and
disillusionment.
Pope Francis championed a brand of religious leadership that emphasized the greatest
commandment of God: to love everyone. He opened the Catholic Church as a haven for foreign
migrants, the sick, the poor, the LGBTQIA, and built dialogue with foreign religious and political
leaders and called for cessation of conflicts in the most humble way: washing and kissing their
feet during Papal visits.
His sincerity resonated to everyone, from Catholics to other religions and nations, winning
hearts that were hardened by time and brokenness. The words of Pope Francis soothed every
wounded heart that needed healing and every weary soul that needed refreshment.
When Pope Francis died: his death signaled not the end, but the beginning of an unfinished
project he started – to reinvigorate the Church in order to be more inclusive, humane, and to
truly practice love the way Jesus Christ wanted it to be.
Looking at the youth today, I know that the message left behind by Pope Francis did not fall on
deaf ears. Young people are listening, and they vow to continue the struggle for inclusivity,
synodality and humanity in order to build a better world for everyone.
March - April 2025
Yellowbelle Duaqui
Poetic Ruminations: The Stories Behind Verses from the Old Pink Tree
As we celebrate World Poetry Day today (March 21, 2025), I reflect on my own poems and my creative process. After all, I just released a print edition of my first poetry book in the Philippines with 8Letters Publishing last January 2025. Titled Verses from the Old Pink Tree: A Filipino Student’s Journey in Japan, this book is a collection of poems on my Japan journey as a graduate student in Tokyo from 2008 to 2011. It also includes poems written out of nostalgia for Japan.
This book won the De La Salle University Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center Poetry Fellowship Grant in English in 2013, during my first year as a faculty member of the university. Although I have always been writing stories and poems since I was a child, I have never really considered myself as a poet. In fact, when I was in college, I became involved in two literary folios (Handumanan and TRIP) produced by the Philippine Collegian, official weekly student publication of the University of the Philippines Diliman between the years 1999 to 2000, not even as a poem contributor but as a business manager who facilitated its release. I have been mostly writing feature articles and sociological research papers at that time.
It must be the beauty of Japan and my curiosity and wanderlust as a first-time international traveler in 2008 that unleashed the poet in me. My brain started to think in terms of literary images and metaphors. And as I commit to writing the metaphors on paper or note them on my mobile phone, verses turned into stanzas and stanzas turned into full-length poems.
Apparently, the experience of traveling and immersing in nature in Japan triggered poetic ruminations in me. After witnessing sunset in Mt. Fuji along the coast of Inamuragasaki on a trip to Kamakura in the Summer of 2010, for instance, the inspiration led me to write a poem called “Sunset at Mount Fuji” after going back to the hotel. The aura of that poetic moment manifests in this stanza:
From the shores of Inamuragasaki
Mount Fuji loomed on the north
Slowly descending behind it
In a burst of colors – the sun
Portraying its drama in hysterics
Of red, gold, orange and yellow streaks
Playing hide and seek
With cotton-candy clouds
-“Sunset at Mount Fuji,” Verses from the Old Pink Tree
On a trip to Mount Norikuradake (乗鞍岳) in the summer of 2009, the southernmost and third tallest major peak of the Northern Japan Alps, the breath-taking scenery inspired me to write these lines:
A tranquil pond of emerald waters
Shimmered with the reflection of soft fleece clouds
Along its banks a path of shy flowers
Where elusive animals scuttle and peep from corners
The hanabatake*** was a sight to behold;
- “The Mountain that Touched God’s Face: A Paean to Mount Norikura”, Verses from the
Old Pink Tree
But it wasn’t only encounters with nature that made me write poetry. It was also my personal encounters with Japanese people that inspired a poem. These lines, for instance, that came to me while aboard the Nankai train to Kansai International Airport, were inspired by my encounter with a kind Japanese professor in the university:
The spring wind
Blows to my direction
The warmth of your kindness
-“The Old Pink Tree,” Verses from the Old Pink Tree
A nasty encounter with another Japanese professor has led me to document my experience in this poem:
The Sensei** slammed the door shut behind her
Using her body as a barrier
So that I could not enter the room
And she demanded with flashing eyes,
“Why are you late?”
I had nothing to say
Since my head was throbbing
From last night’s headache
Spinning from lack of sleep
After pulling an all-nighter
To write my term papers;
Then I heard her say again,
“So the train was not late.”
I was doomed.
She shut the door in haste
Right before my face.
-“Shinkansen Society”, Verses from the Old Pink Tree
Both pleasant and unpleasant experiences in Japan, hence, have found a place to stay in the pages of my first poetry book. The book also included poems written based on my experience of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011.
Then the black crows came
On its heels the ancient visitor
Bringing waves higher than the built walls
Flooding the towers with sea salt
Boiling hot until it dripped with rage
Molten lava seeping through the seams
The earth was burnt to death.
-“When Sunflowers Can No Longer Heal the Earth”, Verses from the Old Pink Tree
In the end, I wrote about hope. Life might be fraught with difficulties and challenges after my return to the Philippines, but I will always look back to that time of realization in my stay in Japan that, amid life’s rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, hope springs eternally. As one of my poems from the collection suggests:
But the farther you went,
The winds became gentler
Bringing you to the serene waters
and the company of carps
Then the lotus blossom extolled:
“You have sailed.”
-“Lesson from the Lotus Blossom,” Verses from the Old Pink Tree
To get a copy of the book, you can follow these links:
Lazada: https://lnkd.in/evwH7PGy
8Letters Website: https://lnkd.in/ee9c_8pz
Gumroad: https://lnkd.in/ebRkeT6q
Kindle: https://lnkd.in/gkPgHcmM