Bernard Inocentes S. Garcia

I WAS born at the dawn of January 29 under the zodiac sign of Aquarius. The year? It doesn’t matter. Like everyone else, I’m old enough to die. Whether the Water Bearer’s alignment with the stars has something to do with my impending death, I do not know. I could only wish I would die in a windy afternoon on a summer day.

In my English class in high school, I read Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas. I didn’t recite it before the class, while some of my unlucky classmates delivered theirs. It was fun. Jesse Dem recited his chosen poem like a politician.

His loud voice woke everyone up, and being a natural comic, his seriousness made us all laugh. Though we all wished he’d forget a line for more fun, he didn’t. Jesse stood his ground and got an “A” for it - he was the man.

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I could no longer remember about Jesse’s poem, and I almost forgot about mine. Just recently though, inside my friend’s room I saw a black cloth posted on her pretty, pink wall. Emblazoned in bold red ink were the lines: “Do not go gentle into that good night/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” She’s Mikki, another sleep-deprived law student. But this is not about her or her love for shoes and human rights.

This is about my rage against death. What is my Grim Reaper’s face? Shall I recognize him a few minutes before my final hour?

How shall I die? Is it through cancer, or flood, or some other acts of God? Shall I die of old age or shall I meet my untimely death in an accident? Ah, spare me violence- no stab wounds or bullets in my head.

When I was little, I often imagined myself in full battle gear, fighting against the armies of evil men. To fight and die in the battlefield for honor and freedom is heroic, and I wouldn’t mind bullets in my body. But a senseless death at the hands of petty criminals at some dark corner of our city streets is an entirely different story. Should I die this way, like countless others, I could only hope justice would be swift so the kin I’d leave behind would have their closure and their peace.

When the Welsh poet wrote Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, he did it to close that episode of his father’s passing so he could move on with life. In the poem his father, old and sick, was lying in his bed. The poet must have remembered his father as a young man, smiling and full of life, as he carried him on his back. With that in mind, he wanted to yell at his father to stand up and fight for life! Kick his father’s bed, if he must.

He wanted him to leave the cold room and once again walk with him on the field to feel the damp soil and touch the raindrops that fell on the grass. Though death is imminent, the poet would like his father, and all men for that matter, to rage against death.

Death is one of life’s mysteries. Unless someone plays God and pulls on the trigger against a hapless individual, no one knows the exact day or the hour of a person’s passing. To rage against the dying of the light is simply to die fighting for that one true life. It’s not easy. Society has a way of shackling one’s dreams, making him forget his own reason for being.

I remember one Friday night inside a small, crowded bar, I saw a man in his 50s belting out passionately Jon Bon Jovi’s It’s my life. The relatively young crowd roared, danced, and sang with him. His music, or rather his rendition of the song, defied class and age, and on that night everyone had fun, breaking the monotony of one’s existence. I was reminded of the power of music to uplift the human spirit: alcoholic drinks made the crowd drunk, but it was music that touched their hearts.

The rhythm and cadence of Dylan Thomas’ poem produces powerful music. I could see him angry and in tears and hear him admonishing his sick father covered with white blankets to get up from bed, put on his slippers, and once again walk with him on the field. Every time I feel dying with the complexities of life, I think of one windy afternoon on a summer day where kites are up in the clouds and children are running in the yard. The whistle of the winds and the laughter of the kids are embedded within my soul; like music, they fire me up to fight for life.

If I would die too soon, like the fate of many others, rest assured: I would rage against the dying of the light.