A special tribute
The term of Dr. Juanito M. Acanto's presidency at Central Philippine University has just ended. Regarding the recent reactions of the stakeholders of CPU about the coming up of a three-man management team in lieu of the retention of Dr. Acanto, I would like to appeal for every Centralian to unite for the sake of the university.
This is a tribute to Dr. Acanto who is among the very few whom I have made a bust portrait in terra cotta last 2005. That gift breaks the tradition of only making such tribute posthumously. While good friends and loved ones are still alive, it is the best time to honor them while they have the capacity to appreciate.
Dr. Acanto's end of term surely creates changes in the heart's landscape especially to those who worked with him. Lately, I did this tribute poem titled "Morning in the Garden" for him:
Shall I compare you to a rising dawn
That orchestrates the early sun,
Painting filigrees, singing auroral rhymes?
Your smile is a thousand dawns on wings
Piercing the darkness with tender light;
That smile is the fuel of the Spirit's flame
Contagious as the melodies I hear
In this immortal morning.
In this garden, I saw you with a gentle hand
Carrying precious seeds to sow
And in our hearts where they fell
Blossoms of God's praises sprang.
It started with an outflowing grace to spill
A store of perfume-gifted secrets
And here they are: the floral kingdom;
Once your hand healed a bended reed
Hid in the shadows
And were it to lift its tender spirit,
Had it to attend to a forgotten muffled cry,
You stooped, awhile forgetting floral beauties that stand
Perhaps to complete the floral graces.
Someday, as by some constant splashing of dreams
Please know that pristinely, hilariously
You will delight to see how the heirs of God's promises
Have become.