An Analysis/Review of Conchitina Cruz’s Alunsina takes a walk in the rain

Conchitina Cruz presents a free verse love poem in Alunsina takes a walk in the rain, but instead of the usual poems usually offered about love, she takes an approach wherein the subject matter focuses about the separation and the longing: the hardest part about loving someone or something, one might say. In her poem, we follow the persona, which I assume had the same or nearly the same experiences as Alunsina, the sky goddess of Visayan myth, as she narrates her side of the story. The myth entails that once, Alunsina and her husband, Tungkung Langit, were once married and they lived upon the highest of the heavens. However, she was said to have left him when Tungkung Langit found out she sent the breeze to spy on him out of jealousy while he was fixing the chaos of the world they inhabited. He drove her away out of anger, and Alunsina was not be found forevermore. It is said that the rain is Tungkung Langit’s tears, and his sobs are the thunder one hears during a storm.

With the details presented in the story, we can see how much the poem alludes to the myth. The persona wishes to stay out of her lover’s prying sight (Each night, I keep my eyes on the shadow of my open umbrella. I stay indoors, stay away from windows). And yet, the persona leaves out of her shell once she hears of the forecast of her former lover’s tears (Today, the news tells me you are scheduled to be lonely. I part my curtains and look). There she basks in the silence of the pouring rain, and in the midst of it all she soaks herself with the tears that explain what words failed to express before. (I will put on my shoes, soak myself in your tears. It is difficult not to miss you when the evening sky is speechless, when your silence travels down my cheeks, like a request.). The words “go home” as said in the first stanza meant nothing to her, but his raw emotions reach her and there they come upon a mutual understanding of the bitter regret and the love they once shared, but only she is aware of this as her former lover has not known or seen her since her departure.

In the end, the persona is still not fully over the parting between her and her old flame. (I cannot forgive you. That day, if you had not refused, I would have given you a present. I would have carved my love in stone.) At the same time, one might think what did her former lover refused. Was her love so zealous that it was too much for him? (I would have carved my love in stone). If so, I can only imagine the pain of loving someone so much that they feel overwhelmed. Nevertheless, people’s capacity to give and accept love is vastly different, and their miscommunication and lack of proper boundaries led to the falling out of the persona and their lover’s relationship. Just like what Bill in The Perks of Dating a Wallflower Said, “We accept the love we think we deserve.” (Chbosky 24). It might be that the persona’s lover was already overwhelmed, or he might have felt that he wasn’t deserving of his lover. In any case, too much of her love led to the demise of what they had. After all this time, they long for each other, but their separation is for the best.

As I have entailed in the previous paragraphs, Cruz made use of Alunsina’s myth and the rain as the central metaphor for the poem. The rain or the tears serves as the way through which they communicate unsaid feelings, like how for the persona’s lover, it represents his longing for his lost love, and for her, it represents her regret, but at the same time unwillingness to forget what had transpired before.

Analyzing this poem reminded me of a poem I once read by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The poem, titled “I should have loved you presently” is presented below:

“I think I should have loved you presently,

And given in earnest words I flung in jest;

And lifted honest eyes for you to see,

And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;

And all my pretty follies flung aside

That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,

Naked of reticence and shorn of pride

Spread like a chart my little wicked ways.

I, that had been to you, had you remained,

But one more waking from a recurrent dream,

Cherish no less the certain stakes I gained,

And walk your memory’s halls, austere, supreme,

A ghost in marble of a girl you knew

Who would have loved you in a day or two. “

Both poems heavily reflect the theme of regret, and both personas are feminine coded. One of the lines I wanted to really emphasize is “A ghost in marble of a girl you knew, Who would have loved you in a day or two”. It ties in nicely with the last line of Cruz’s poem, too. (I cannot forgive you. That day, if you had not refused, I would have given you a present. I would have carved my love in stone.) In this line the persona of Millay’s poem is just like that of the persona in Cruz’s poem: someone who was ready to give it their all but that person is no more. It is all in the past, and yet the poems both seem to hint at regrets that they were not fully able to express.

Cruz’s poem is a beautiful narrative of a love that once was. It combines great use of allusion and parallelism to the Visayan goddess Alunsina, and the use of free verse helps tie in the story for me. One might argue that it might as well be prose, but for me, the presentation through the use of poetry shows only how diverse poetry truly is. Through this poem, Cruz and her persona cycle through the zealous love, the bitter regrets, and finally the expected parting. And yet, this very parting is what gave way to new things, much like how Tungkung Langit’s sorrow gave way to creation in their myth. (Lasquety)

References:

Chbosky, Stephen. The Perks of Being a Wallflower. New York, Pocket Books, 1999.

Lasquety, Nicole. “Modern Interpretations of the Tungkung Langit and Alunsina Story.” Medium, 25 Nov. 2019, https://nicolelasquety.medium.com/modern-interpretations-of-the- tungkung-langit-and-alunsina-story-7d5fef6e0fbe. Accessed 8 Dec. 2020

St. Vincent Millay, Edna. “I think I should have loved you presently.” The Norton Anthology American Literature, edited by Nina Baym, W.W. Norton & Company, 2007, p. 1805.

The Story of Tunkung Langit and Alunsina. Visayan Mythologies of the Philippines, 10 May 2013, http://vizayanmyths.blogspot.com/2013/05/creation-myth-variant-1.html. Accessed 8 December 2020.