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24
January – March
www.deltalivingmagazine.com
By Christine R. Santiago
A hopeless dreamer I became
Only destiny could I blame
Too late, I felt, for salvation
From chains of brutal submission
In abysmal depths
Of ery deaths
Eternal as Dante’s Inferno.
My secret hopes, passions and desires,
Cherubs once sang sweetly with their lyres;
Romantics like me so hard to fathom
By others so shallow they have become,
For fear of sheer rejection
From love’s most cruel abjection
Doomed to dream no more.
One day I start to roam the streets of San Francisco
Through countless avenues, roads, alleys, and pieds-à-terre,
Beguiled byThe City's powerful beckoning
Akin to that of Grecian Sirens sweetly singing
The allure of its beauty intensely irresistible
Even to the loneliest of all people,
Becoming ardently enthralled.
Perchance from a corner in San Francisco,
An echo I start to follow
There he is this other dreamer,
Standing on a street corner
Lit by brightly twinkling stars
Not through the vast, in nitude universe,
But by the innumerable City Lights
With only street lamps as his spotlights.
As mesmerized as a dreamer can be
By another who croons so charming to me
Whose chantey with deep symbolic imagery
Of human experiences etched in immortality,
If for a moment forgetting one’s mortality;
Then other dreamers joined me in sheer admiration
‘Round this street performer singing with much ery passion.
I begin allowing myself to be alive once more,
Bringing out intense passions of yore
For such balladry only a master ever can croon;
Hope once again coming back within me
With much inspiration touching me so deeply;
Slowly I start feeling more joyful,
Tremendously alive and soulful;
Once more I wished upon San Francisco’s star,
Believing my wish shall be ful lled.
Secretly I thank this other dreamer,
I start to walk away my gait now lighter
His ballad I begin humming with care
Enlightened
Inspired
Ful lled
Hope rekindled in my heart so tender,
That one lovely, starry evening
Amongst the twinkling lights
Of The City by the Bay.
Dreamers do dream
And dreams do come true.
T he Dreamer
By Christine R. Santiago
J
avier (pictured above) came into my
counseling faculty o ce one bright,
sunny day ve years ago. Our rapport was
immediate because all I had to say was,
“You want to attend U.C. Berkeley? Let’s
do it!” and his story gushed out like the
fresh water of a geyser.
Javier’s journey began when his fam-
ily left Mexico to seek a better future.The
eldest of a young couple that never gradu-
ated from high school, Javier experienced
extreme hardships while witnessing his
father toiling at two fast food joints, walk-
ing to work for miles, and rarely spending
time with his family for survival’s sake.
While a mere high school freshman,
Javier’s counselors and teachers disparag-
ingly told him over and again, “It’s not
possible for you to succeed,” something
Mexican-Americans hear everyday.While
at rst a shadow was cast over his dreams
of academic success, Javier became reso-
lute to prove there is no “impossible.”
Watching this young man transcend
the obstacles he faced due to his ethnic-
ity and socioeconomic background was
inspiring.He became his younger brother,
Jonathan’s academic role model, which
Javier himself lacked. He attended com-
munity college because of his family’s in-
ability to a ord a university. He unrelent-
ingly pursued success in academia while
helping augment his family’s income as a
math and English tutor. Like his parents,
Javier burned the midnight oil, daring to
dream the impossible.
As the band played, “Pomp and Cir-
cumstance,” tears were streaming down
my cheeks while I watched Javier proudly
delivering his commencement speech-he
was chosen as the year’sValedictorian. He
proved every naysayer wrong by getting
accepted into the University of California
at Berkeley, consequently earning a bac-
calaureate in political science and psychol-
ogy with a minor in ethnic studies.There-
after, Javier became a Policy and Research
Fellow at a nationally recognized nonprof-
it institution.
Being o ered admission into the most
prestigious law schools in America--Co-
lumbia, Stanford, Northwestern, Boalt
Hall, and Georgetown, among others
was a victory. Javier chose to and is now
proudly walking down the ivy halls of
Harvard Law School, turning the “impos-
sible” into a reality.
Conquest of Javier Oliver-Keymorth
Impossible dream
comes true: