Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Volume 2, Number 44 December 8 - 14, 2002 Quezon City, Philippines |
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LETTERS TO THE FILIPINO ARTISTS Emmanuel
Lacaba
Invisible
the mountain routes to strangers: For
rushing toes an inch-wide strip on boulders And
for the hand that's free a twig to grasp, Or
else we headlong fall below to rocks And
waterfalls of death so instant that Too
soon they're red with skulls of carabaos. But
patient guides and teachers are the masses: Of
forty mountains and a hundred rivers; Of
plowing, planting, weeding, and the harvest; And
of a dozen dialects that dwarf This
foreign tongue we write each other in Who
must transcend our bourgeois origins. South
Cotabato May
1, 1975
II You
want to know, companions of my youth How
much has changed the wild but shy young poet Forever
writing last poem after last poem; You
hear he's dark as earth, barefoot, A
turban round his head, a bolo at his side, His
ballpen blown up to a long-barreled gun: Deeper
still the struggling change inside. Like
husks of coconut he tears away The
billion layers of his selfishness. Or
learns to cage his longing like the bird Of
legend, fire, and song within his chest. Now
of consequence is his anemia From
lack of sleep: no longer for Bohemia, The
lumpen culturati, but for the people, yes. He
mixes metaphors but values more A
holographic and geometric memory For
mountains: not because they are there But
because the masses are there where Routes
are jigsaw puzzles he must piece together. Though
he has been called a brown Rimbaud, He
is no bandit but a people's warrior. South
Cotabato and Davao del Norte November
1975 III We
are tribeless and all tribes are ours. We
are homeless and all homes are ours. We
are nameless and all names are ours. To
the fascists we are the faceless enemy Who
come like thieves in the night, angels of death: The
ever moving, shining, secret eye of the storm. The
road less traveled by we've taken- And
that has made all the difference: The
barefoot army of the wilderness We
all should be in time. Awakened, the masses are Messiah. Here
among workers and peasants our lost Generation
has found its true, its only home. Davao
del Norte
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