About the Region

Cagayan Valley (Lambak ng Cagayan in Filipino) is a region of the Philippines, also designated
as Region II. It is composed of five provinces, ( Batanes, Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya,
and Quirino) . Its regional center is Tuguegarao City.

Most of the region lies in a large valley in northeastern Luzon, between the Cordilleras and the Sierra
Madre mountain ranges. Cagayan River, the country's longest river runs through its center and flows
out to Luzon Strait in the north, in the town of Aparri, Cagayan. The Babuyan and Batanes island
groups that lie in the Luzon Strait also belong to the region.

Tradition and Culture

Unlike in the Mountain Region, land in the Cagayan Region is fertile for profitable agriculture. It is
no wonder that crops such as rice, corn, and tobacco, and fruits and vegetables, are produced in
amounts that exceed the community requirements.
A significant number of the original settlers- the Ilongots, Igorots and a few Dumagats is still found
living along boundaries of the province or inhabiting the forests. The Ilongots were believed to have
descended from the Indonesians. They are quite good-looking and friendly.

In the Ilongot society, the man is an absolute king. The women cook and farm. The men fish and hunt,
bring firewood, build fences and take care of the kaingin. They can have as many as six wives as long
as they treat each one fairly and build a house for each wife.

Childbirth among the Ilongots is simple. The pregnant mother goes to a spot near a tree a bed of ashes
has been prepared. When the time to deliver comes, the pregnant woman holds on to the tree trunk
allowing the baby to fall on the bed of ashes. She cuts the umbilical cord with a sharp objects washes
herself in a nearby river, and gives the baby to the father. Having done these, she returns to the field to
continue working.

About the Author

Edith Tiempo, poet, fictionist, teacher and literary critic is one of the finest Filipino writers in English
whose works are characterized by a remarkable fusion of style and substance , of craftsmanship and
insight. She was born on April 22, 1919 in Bayombong , Nueva Vizcaya. Her poems are intricate
verbal transfiguration of significant experience as revealed, in two of her much anthologized pieces.
The little Marmoset and Bosai. As fictionist, Tiempo is as morally profound. Her language has
been marked as descriptive but unburdened by scrupulous detailing. She is an influential tradition in
Philippine literature in English. Together with her late husband, Edilberto K. tiempo, she founded and
directed the Siliman National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City which has produced some of the
countrys best writers.
 LITERARY ELEMENTS
Meter
None ( Free Verse)

Rhyme
Run-shun
Motors-odors
Hedge-heads
Started-wanted
Running-rocking
Imagined-chagrined
Smart-apart

Stanza and Form

Free Verse

Tone
Sentimental

LITERARY TECHNIQUES
Figurative Language
Simile (death compared to a sick man)
Simile ( breaths compared to lemon rinds)

Imagery

Memory of the youth stopped abruptly by time

Symbolism
Dead years Old Age
Grey hair- Old age

Allegory
This virtually sounds religious,as interior the bible observe, The Lord give , and the Lord
take away. So this would be an allusion to the Bible verse.One basic famous individual and
yet another would be a metaphor for identifying on a theory in God as quickly as youre
approximately to die, so groping around for the enjoyed is attempting to hit upon God in the
past you die. Oldest poem is metaphor for the allusion to the Bible verse and existence that
extends to whats given to us, a metaphor for initiating, and then taken, a metaphor for
loss life.

Point of View
The third person , because it uses pronouns like he or a name.
He had circled this house in thirty counts
He, an old man cracking bones of his embarrassment apart.

Fore shadowing
He, an old man cracking bones of his embarrassment apart.