Luis G Dato’s ‘Day on the Farm’

an essay by Roger B Rueda

Last night a friend of mine from Ateneo asked me to interpret the poem ‘Day on the Farm.’ Tired from a Roxas City trip, I slept early, disremembering to ascribe meaning to the poem.

When I opened my Facebook, I felt so guilty, having not made any analysis of the poem, so I explained it in a few lines. Then I sent it through the chatbox.  I promised him I would make a longer analysis the next day. So here is it.

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Let’s establish who the speaker is first. He must be a husband, who loves his wife a lot, so he offers her everything he finds. All he wants perhaps is to make his wife pleased. So he is very happy to announce that he has found the fruits of sweetest taste.

The most amazing part of the poem is the word ‘duhat.’ It means a round or oval smooth-skinned fruit, usually red or purple, tasting pungent. The speaker here is a Filipino I think because he knows what a duhat is. One can’t tell what that fruit is the first time he sees it when he is not a Filipino. Thus, for me, the husband in the poem is not a universal husband. For one, someone who is not a Filipino will call it a plum, not a duhat. The wife I don't know has asked him to look for her a duhat – because, perhaps, she is becoming pregnant. By tradition, the husband has to follow what his wife asks for. Otherwise it is believed she would have a miscarriage. That’s why he has gone to a hill just to look for a duhat his wife craves for.

On the other hand, if one binds someone with something, it is bringing her under control. It means she is struggling or fighting back. It means she wants to get away as it the place she is not comfortable to stay at. She must be a city woman. The husband here sounds ironic: he seems to satisfy what his wife wants but the crying is the indication the wife here is not happy, not content. Her crying can mean her demonstration, her grievance, her resentment. The rare wildflowers can mean something of great value but the wife is not happy having with because all she wants is a different one – something that emancipates her from the shadow of men, something that attaches importance to her being a woman, something that bares her talents and abilities, something that shows her beauty on view, something that doesn’t confine her self to one perspective but regards her as someone endowed with lively intellect and ingenuity.

The husband here is someone who gives his wife something she doesn’t ask for. The wife is someone who cannot appreciate what her husband gives her. With what is happening, the husband convinces his wife to follow him instead of him following her. He tells her that she should not cry because she is no longer young to cry; only the young and the weak cry. But to her, crying is not being weak. It is her way of doing battle with the fallacies of being a woman and how women should be treated. That is crying their displeasure instead of keeping it in secret. It is stirring up the compassion of men and bumping off their triviality and callousness.

When the bells ring, something has to happen. It means they both need to be ready for something. When the rain falls in drop, they need to leave and take refuge. It is telling her to stop sulking. It is telling her to stop huffing and puffing. It is also assuaging her. His hearing of drops of rain is his telling her to stop crying and get up on feet and follow him because of the impending threat or predicament. There seems to have a masculine vanity that is involved here. On the other hand, he must just be so concerned with her.

In a relationship, however, a couple should know what one wants and what makes one happy. In the poem, both the husband and the wife do not know how their differences can become a foil for each other’s happiness and satisfaction. They both get the wrong end of the stick. Because of this, their relationship is so uneven. It becomes a misfortune that will miff them both repeatedly until they realise all their failings and shortfalls in each other.

The poem is full of paradox: he’s caught her in his arms an hour and taught her love’s secret where the mountain spirits meet, yet he doesn’t know what love is: he is so distant from her thoughts and longings, from her dreams and joy, from her contentment and interest; if he knows love’s secret, unbound, his wife will love him, smiling. And such an unusual reality becomes as mundane to the couple as indicated by the poem’s title, which tells where and when the poem happens.

The poem reminds me of an Iloilo woman who got married to a Korean farmer. She was a clerk at a copy centre. When he came to the Philippines, he introduced himself to the woman as a businessman. The woman fell in love with him and they got married after a few months. Later the man went back to Korea with her. Then she realised she got married to a farmer. All she wanted were given by her husband except that she was not allowed to go back to the Philippines. That time she felt so unhappy despite all the things her husband gave her. Their house was on a far-flung farm in rural South Korea, where they had no neighbours. With no one to talk to, she felt so lonely and downhearted. Every day she would cry and cry. It took years for her to go back to Iloilo. When I met her at a mall, she told me that she had to follow her husband or else she couldn’t see her children anymore forever. All her children then were left to her in-laws in Korea, so she couldn’t decide to leave him and stay in Iloilo for good.

Anyway, the husband in the poem doesn’t know what a woman is. He knows of her as someone who should follow him without considering what she thinks of. He is very old-fashioned and intolerant. He thinks of a woman as someone inferior to him, yet in many aspects the woman is intellectually superior to him. And that seems to be what he has failed to realise.

He wants to fill his wife with wonder, but he can’t do it to her. He fails to understand that women are not all the same. An oversimplified conception is very dangerous I think. He should know that individuality is much more in the cards than what he thinks of women or individuals. That being a husband is not something that gives him all the power to be in control. Marriage is not all about men who is in control – it is teamwork:  love cannot go on with modern women when men do not treat women as their equals. For love to work, both should realise their imperfection and inadequacy.

Here is the poem ‘Day on the Farm.’

I’ve found you fruits of sweetest taste and found you
Bunches of duhat growing by the hill,
I’ve bound your arms and hair with vine and bound you
With rare wildflowers but you are crying still.

I’ve brought you all the forest ferns and brought you
Wrapped in green leaves cicadas singing sweet,
I’ve caught you in my arms an hour and taught you
Love’s secret where the mountain spirits meet.

Your smiles have died and there is no replying
To all endearment and my gifts are vain;
Come with me, love, you are too old for crying,
The church bells ring and I hear drops of rain.

—Luis G Dato