Supremo

SUPREMO

To Andres Bonifacio

Your bones may be lost forever,

But we are possessed, fortunately,

Of your photograph, in which

You glare—proud, sullen,

Belligerent, yet also brave, staunch,

Inspired—Supremo indeed.

I do not doubt your genius,

Testified by, for one,

Your marvelous capacity

For self-education, though

You must admit that

Your keenness is blunted

By your weakness

In the aspect of strategy:

Your inability to ride

Rapidly transforming events

So that they instead

Rode you, shamefully,

To your wretched execution—

Unjust, no doubt,

Still, result of your failure

To play your cards well.

Unyielding to a fault,

Prickly, reckless,

Flawed by fatal hubris,

You forecast your own fate

In the red and black flags

Of the Katipunan.

Now, standing in dust and smoke

Beclouding your monument

By the illustrious sculptor,

Guillermo Tolentino,

I see the Great Plebeian

Brandishing bolo and gun

And wonder about the message

He purportedly signifies.

Is there wisdom in violence?

Behold, the sword that liberates

Is the selfsame weapon

That tragically destroys!

Originally published in Anak Sastra (October 26, 2014), pages 80-81

All Souls’

ALL SOULS’

The day of the dead is short respite for the living.

The tumult of life is stilled by the remembrance of the dead.

The living remembers the dead as the silence of the grass.

The grass is the dead ever present among the living.

The dead have not forgotten that life is breath and water.

They hover in the air, waiting for rain.

Water is the prayers of the living for the thirsty.

The living sometimes forget, the dead ever remember.

Mourning Angel Cemetery Sculpture