Today I see young men packed off to a war that’s neither their making nor their choice, and I recall Angel, who is perhaps long dead, joining the Army not because he was a patriot but because there was no other way. So it has not changed really, how in another war in another time, young men have died believing that it was their duty to defend these blighted islands. It may well be, but the politicians and the generals — they live as weeds always will — accumulating wealth and enjoying the land the young have died to defend. This is how it was, and this is how it will be.
Who was Don Vicente, after all? I should not be angered then, when men in the highest places, sworn to serve this country as public servants, end up as millionaires in Pobres Park, while using the people’s money in the name of beauty, the public good, and all those shallow shibboleths about discipline and nationalism that we have come to hear incessantly. I should not shudder anymore in disgust or contempt when the most powerful people in the land use the public coffers for their foreign shopping trips or build ghastly fascist monuments in the name of culture or of the Filipino spirit. I see artists — even those who cannot draw a hand or a face — pass themselves off as modernists and demand thousands of pesos for their work, which, of course, equally phony art patrons willingly give. And I remember Tio Marcelo — how he did not hesitate to paint calesas and, in his later years, even jeepneys, so that his work would be seen and used, and not be a miser’s gain in some living room to be viewed by people who may not know what art is. I hear politicians belching the same old clichés, and I remember Tio Doro and how he spent his own money for his candidacy and how he had bowed to the demands of change. When I see justice sold to the highest bidder I remember Tio Baldo and how he lost. So honesty, then, and service are rewarded by banishment, and people sell themselves without so much ado because they have no beliefs — only a price.
I would like to see all this as a big joke that is being played upon us, but I have seen what was wrought in the past — the men who were destroyed without being lifted from the dung heap of poverty, without recourse to justice.
But like my father, I have not done anything. I could not, because I am me, because I died long ago.
Who, then, lives? Who, then, triumphs when all others have succumbed? The balete tree — it is there for always, tall and leafy and majestic. In the beginning, it sprang from the earth as vines coiled around a sapling. The vines strangled the young tree they had embraced. They multiplied, fattened, and grew, became the sturdy trunk, the branches spread out to catch the sun. And beneath this tree, nothing grows!
Baguio
October 26, 1977
MY BROTHER, MY EXECUTIONER
Luis Asperri
I
This is the beginning—
We started here and followed them,
They who had their backs to us,
They who began here, too,
Who cut the trees and uprooted weeds.
We prepared the fallow earth
And planted the seed
And all that had to be done is done.
They will also begin here—
They whose faces are young still,
Whose deeds we cannot know.
Will they also end here
Like all of us, without meaning?
II
Land without change, claim me now—
Grasshopper and dragonfly
Beyond duhat tree, over the river,
The greenest hill and plain.
III
The road is long, dusty and crooked,
And at the end, a decrepit fence
Around a straw house.
What can it hold? A sun grown cold,
Fruit of the field that is husk.
I walked away from it,
Morning dew that washed my feet.
My eyes are clear and what do I see?
A stone wilderness that wearies me.
IV
On my knees in Quiapo till my knees ache
Lisping a prayer in Quiapo till my tongue numbs
I shall lacerate myself till I bleed
Because it is Friday—
On my knees in Quiapo, in the poisoned air,
Listening to hope that is not there.
V
Dark beneath this white—
Thoughts curdle the mind;
I was lost, searching among ghosts.
Where have you been, my brother,
What springs have you tasted,
What mountains have you scaled?
We are one in a pod
But one will wither.
Now we sow in anger
And the thunder of words deafens us.
Truth burns the mind, but how—
Yes, how to utter it!
VI
I should hasten back to the cave
Where there is no light, no presence,
And perhaps no end.
The mirror is not cracked
Nor the mind with which I see.
VII
The shadow I cast is long;
My forehead is moist, my hand is cold.
I have gone to a field to glean
And now, my pillow is a rock
And night without stars
Surrounds me.
Even the trees are still
Shriveled in the air …
There is no dream.
VIII
I do not think there will be meaning
To an end as trite as death
Nothing really dies,
Not this blue of the sea; nor will this breath
Sour as long as loving
And the brilliance you bring
Tarry as you pass by.
The wave we watched, the dunes we shaped,
The grains of sand that slipped
Through our fingers—
What could I give?
As long as we shun regret, and time remember,
Then my life is blessed.
There is no meaning now to death.
I am secure in this treasure we share—
We really dared, we dare.
IX
The eclipse passes
And leaves no trace;
We can deceive the eagle eye
And draw rings around the sun.
Filler of my need,
Quencher of my thirst,
We have scanned the twisted sky
And dug a land that is scabbed.
Where did we bury them — the hopes
We could not hold?
X
God, when I was weak-kneed
And frightened; when my voice was hoarse
And my breath was short,
You did not come.
If I was your son, blood of your blood,
If you are true as blood is true
Then, listen, God—
Your feet are rooted on this earth
On which I also stand.
I hurl to you this gall
To deafen you, to blind you.
Leave now
For you have long feasted on my rice
And the bin has long been empty.
These hands — gnarled and nerveless now
Can serve no more,
Nor this heart beat for you.
You cannot feed me in my hunger
Or comfort me in my cell;
Dusk chokes my breath.
XI
We slept late last night
Soaked in the heat.
We marched on blistered feet
And burnt-out lungs
And our stomachs were cold and wrought.
We knew where we were going
As hungry dogs know the scent of home.
The sky was black and ghosts wreathed our way
And because we could not see,
We plodded on to where we started
As the others before us, and yet before us …
When will we know how to pause?
When will we know the quiet shade?
Even in our deepest dreams we are awake
Listening to the dreaded footfall of those who hate us.
Even in our quietest peace we are awake,
Tortured by the touch of conscience,
Listless, because …
We all slept late last night
And now it is morning, but, God—
Where is the sun?
XII
My Brother, the season is here;
The earth is seared, the grass is browned,
And dust covers everything.
The carabaos call for their young;
The dogs howl in the wind.
The frogs are buried in the clod
And the creek where we swam is dry.
We whose wounds are tattoed on our breasts,
Whose throats are aching and parched—
When can we heal? How can we ever speak?
All the laughter that rings
Comes in the wake—
The music that beguiles us
Accompanies the parade to the north.
My Brother, the season is here,
The sun that is kind now ripens no grain
And rain that falls, falls on barren clay.
My Brother, I am alone.