The Coming of the Rain

Gathered by the oppressive heat
Heavy clouds darken all beneath.
But thunder and lightning proclaim
A new season of growth in the rain.

The wide wind and deepening stream
Race from the mountain to bring
The message in a more intimate way.
The coming of the rain to the plains.

The trees raise their arms to the sky
And dance in a movement so spright.
The bushes raise and blend their voices
With the trees in song and laughter.

The wind sweeps away the fallen leaves
And fans the spark on the stubbly field.
The flames leap and whet the thirst
Of the earth so eager for the water thrusts.

To A Woman Poet*

Dying Immortal

yesterday I had a talk
with an old man
who had your eyes -
the same laughing squint
hiding a watchfulness
that catches even hints
of rainbows.

— poem to her comrade

The fronds, without being told, danced in crosses
On a deathground of proud trees and humble hills
And the birds knew when to chirp their elegies.
Even the rocks seemed to be renewing themselves
Angrily, where they had been chipped off
By the violence of lead warring against earth.
Rains poured in January and spirited away
Your blood into the roots of quiet bamboo
And into the headwaters of the lowland brook.
The earth must have felt wonder: This warm body
Has slumped so beautifully, clutching its own
As though in a prophecy of bittersweet reunion.
You had written of lilies in the free undergrowth
Unfolding like the remembered eyes of your love,
Eyes more constant than the glimmer of fireflies
Lilies like torches in a dark season of monsoons.
It may not be so strange, after all, that memories
Of our moment of dying over your unreal death
Persist to haunt us: it was only a second of grief,
And we small need, oh! a brave cycle of lifetimes
To feel your hands in ours, fully hold your spirit
As we follow trails where you planted your flowers.

Edgar Maranan

The woman poet referred to is Lorena Barros, a former student activist and the founder of the first militant feminist organisation in the country She was herself a political prisoner at Canlubang and Ipil She escaped from prison in 1974 and was killed in an encounter by the military in March. 1976.

Grassfire

It only took seconds, the end
Of fieldgrass teeming: it was a spark
On the hillsides, a firetongue
That began as a tease to the cogon maddened by summer.
Gusts swept in, swishing through
The blades: then the fury
Became unquenchable fire
Leaping up to the trees.
Black and white were the billows
Taking the place of clouds, as flames
Spindled and swooshed across the fields
Turning carbon desolate,' a blighted land
More wasted, serer than before.
The raging curse smouldered
All in its path, until a mutual farewell
Crackled between grass and thatch;
Charred, in no time, was the stonewall
Bounding the world where I stood.
And the grassfire sputtered out, yet I
Continued to feel the whole season's heat
Upon my face, and in my eyes
Where I stood inside the cell.

Edgar Maranan

To A Woman Held Prisoner In Chile

It is the dark days, sign
Of the encompassing vulture
And anaconda coiling, guilefully through the land.
A German shepherd stalks your prison cavern
With swastika legs spreading out,
Obedient to the private language of the guards.
Soon, the bestial soldier is thrust
Into you, brave flower of Santiago.
Perhaps, you have not screamed
As a victim would, bled
So much as a martyr before the lions.
Perhaps you have simply gritted
Your teeth and clenched your fists,
Thinking of comrades and the flowers
Of the Andes, in unspoken communion
With Chileans on mountains and plains
Believed with them that these dogs
Must have an end, these geniuses
Of the falanga¹, prod and truncheon.
It is the dark days, terror
Reveals your captors' canine teeth.
Frothing, many times have they taken you, O mother
Of the land and daughter to freedom,
Taken by all manners of dogs
Into all chasms of darkness!
It is the dark days, brave companera²,
But your struggle yearns to go on!
Oh, flower of Santiago!
As the petals fall.
Grow your thistles with the bloodsap
You have given to the violated earth.

Edgar Maranan