<html>
<head>
<style>
.hmmessage P
{
margin:0px;
padding:0px
}
body.hmmessage
{
font-size: 10pt;
font-family:Verdana
}
</style>
</head>
<body class='hmmessage'>
Ching-In,<BR>
<BR>
Thank you so much for sharing Melissa's words with us.<BR>
I am here in front of my computer, overwhelmed.<BR>
May Melissa's words rise as the most precious perfume<BR>
that chases the stench of oppression away, may they rise<BR>
as righteous, cleansing flames throughout the world.<BR>
<BR>
Alba<BR> <BR>> Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:43:07 -0700<BR>> From: chinginchen@gmail.com<BR>> To: cwgrad-announcements@lists.ucr.edu<BR>> Subject: [Cwgrad-announcements] Thank You (from Melissa Roxas)<BR>> <BR>> Dear friends,<BR>> <BR>> Several members of this community were very supportive and signed<BR>> petitions, spread the word and held Melissa in their thoughts.<BR>> <BR>> I wanted to share words that she wrote to the Kundiman community we<BR>> are part of -- and thank you for caring. Melissa wanted this to reach<BR>> those who supported her so please feel free to forward to others who<BR>> might have done work on her behalf. If you want to know more about<BR>> her time during her abduction, here's a link to an affidavit that she<BR>> gave: http://philcsc.wordpress.com/<BR>> <BR>> Ching-In<BR>> <BR>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------<BR>> From: Melissa Roxas<BR>> <BR>> Dearest Kundiman Family,<BR>> <BR>> I want to thank all of you for your love and support. Please know<BR>> that I have received your concerns and your words that are very moving<BR>> to me and is helping me heal. I am very much grateful to have a<BR>> concerned community of fellow artists and friends. Your support was<BR>> important in helping put pressure on the Philippine military for my<BR>> release. Thank you for believing in truth and justice.<BR>> <BR>> Below is a letter for you and others that supported me through all of<BR>> this. I also wanted to share with you how much I do believe in<BR>> communities like these. Kundiman means an art song, traditional<BR>> filipino love songs... I think it is so appropriate for what it means<BR>> to create a safe and truthful way of creating a community of fellow<BR>> poets and artists, and for me it has always also meant truth, as all<BR>> love songs are...<BR>> <BR>> When I was abducted and tortured it was also the music of poetry that<BR>> kept me sane, along with the knowledge that I am aware there are<BR>> people out there that will fight for me and fight for my release.<BR>> Here are some words that kept rising out of me during that time they<BR>> held me... poor poets words, but words nonetheless of my truth during<BR>> those hours.<BR>> <BR>> Come before the Night Hour<BR>> Come and Sing<BR>> before Night<BR>> Comes. I am Flame<BR>> to the Body.<BR>> The Incipient Wing<BR>> that can’t Fly.<BR>> The Open<BR>> Skin on a Foot<BR>> that Bleeds<BR>> Black. Tonight<BR>> I will learn to Die<BR>> a Thousand Times<BR>> and Be Resurrected.<BR>> <BR>> Much love,<BR>> Melissa Roxas<BR>> <BR>> ********<BR>> <BR>> The recent birth of my niece reminds me that life is something more<BR>> than just presence, it is the earth rising inside of you, the earth<BR>> that has been there since the beginning, but taking a different form.<BR>> <BR>> I started to think about all the other babies I had seen as a<BR>> community health worker in the Philippines before my niece was born.<BR>> The marking of before and after, beginnings and endings. I remember<BR>> their mothers taking them in for health screenings and basic check<BR>> ups. Infants who went untreated for days with a fever, the softness<BR>> in their eyes gives way to a hardness, their skin was tight from<BR>> dehydration, they were so tiny, their hand in mine was as little as my<BR>> thumbnail. I remember how much I wanted them to get better and be<BR>> alive. With so many babies, children and families that I’ve met, I<BR>> realized that the disease they had was more than an epidemic of<BR>> typhoid fever, cholera, or malaria, it was the disease of poverty and<BR>> oppression.<BR>> <BR>> When I started to work more with particular issues of human rights<BR>> violations I also met different babies, babies and children who had<BR>> lost their mothers and fathers to a different death. A horrible and<BR>> preventable death that takes the life not only of its victim, but robs<BR>> the whole family and the world of their presence, all because they<BR>> advocated and fought for a better world where their children have<BR>> genuine freedom, a just peace, and true democracy.<BR>> <BR>> Each day I was with the community, I learned how precious a birth can<BR>> be, how to appreciate life, and I slowly began to understand what they<BR>> meant when they whispered me their names and told their stories.<BR>> There are no deaths that are forgotten, no fathers, no mothers, no<BR>> sisters and brothers, aunts, uncles, or cousins that are forgotten.<BR>> They live in the births of new babies each day.<BR>> <BR>> When my own experience of abduction and torture ended and I was<BR>> reunited with my family it was not a second birth for me, I realized<BR>> that it is a continuing journey for the search for truth and justice.<BR>> Repressive governments and military use torture as a form of control,<BR>> to instill fear in people in debilitating ways, so they stay quiet and<BR>> lose their light inside. But I realized no amount of pain or<BR>> suffering or fear can stop that earth in me to keep rising. Instead<BR>> it gave birth to new births. My experience has convinced me even more<BR>> of the value of freedom and justice and the importance of fighting for<BR>> and upholding the principles of human rights and human dignity.<BR>> <BR>> Me being able to write this right now is testimony of how your<BR>> collective love, support, prayers, and action is helping me and others<BR>> like me through this experience. I know that your support is also part<BR>> of a larger movement to create change towards a world free of poverty<BR>> and oppression. Thank you to friends and family, family and friends<BR>> of other desaparecidos, progressive people’s organizations, human<BR>> rights groups, lawyers, civil rights advocates, church people’s<BR>> organizations, concerned individuals, fellow poets and artists, and<BR>> all believers in human rights and justice.<BR>> <BR>> There are many more desaparecidos, more abductions, torture and<BR>> extra-judicial killings going on in the Philippines and around the<BR>> world. Let the new birth come where there is an end to all of the<BR>> killings, abductions, and torture. Let the noise come from all<BR>> directions—they are no longer whispers but shouts for justice.<BR>> <BR>> Love,<BR>> Melissa Roxas<BR>> -- <BR>> ~~~~~<BR>> Ching-In Chen<BR>> THE HEART'S TRAFFIC (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press 2009)<BR>> http://www.arktoi.com/books/heart.shtml<BR>> http://www.redhen.org/RedHenPress.html#/catalog/catalog<BR>> www.chinginchen.com<BR>> <BR>> _______________________________________________<BR>> Cwgrad-announcements mailing list<BR>> Cwgrad-announcements@lists.ucr.edu<BR>> http://lists.ucr.edu/mailman/listinfo/cwgrad-announcements<BR><br /><hr />Bing™ brings you maps, menus, and reviews organized in one place. <a href='http://www.bing.com/search?q=restaurants&form=MLOGEN&publ=WLHMTAG&crea=TEXT_MLOGEN_Core_tagline_local_1x1' target='_new'>Try it now.</a></body>
</html>