The setting for murder is perfect.
And the act is multiple,
in-the-face and full length
one ritual inaugurated
at Ampatuan but certainly
has been going on
before the history of our god-forsaken
lives got to have punitive lines.
Two days of planning
for your foes' death
complete with the innocent's script:
where the shallow graves would be
what deceptive reports would be released
to the president and her military men
what words would cover up
the lies of thieves and impertinent
gods who roam the wash of days
what sentences would judge
the mortal enemies of Monday mornings
like this one in this sad,
sorrowing Ampatuan,
when the just sun was up
with its bright lights shining
through the land with its tall grasses
that first covered the dastardly deed
the same land that would give off
the cover for the bodies of women,
some doing lawyering and giving logic
to the life of ending inequities
the bodies of our faith gone too soon
but awaiting redeeming
the bodies of the pregnant
dreaming of birthplaces and birthrights
and the citizenship we have
with an atrocious country such as ours
ruled by the big men
with monstrous desires
with their murderous declarations
of what basic freedoms are all about.
The gleaming guns came in handy
in the morning sun,
as was the shallow grave
from the backhoe
operated perhaps by fear
and the man who had to preside
over which fresh flesh came first
into the fresh mound.
What vision of a land is this
what country what nation
what community is it
that makes all these possible
this picture perfect view
of cheap deaths,
fifty-seven of them all, and the death
of what is possible after burying
our hopes with them who came
to Ampatuan to hope?
I grieve, I can only grieve.
I come from a faraway land
now but these images linger on
linger longer that I can hold on.
On a Monday morning like this one
is this mourning whose consonants
and vowels I cannot find.
A Solver Agcaoili
Manoa/Nov 24, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment