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From 

ANTINOSTALGIA

You shall not forget. Dusk will peer into your

Window, tragic-eyed and still,

And unbidden startle you into remembrance

With its hand upon the sill.

 

                                    —Angela Manalang Gloria

 

 

We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge 

for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known. 

 

                                   â€•Carson McCullers

Pugót or The Headless One. Dedicated to the unknown Filipino heroes of World War II,the monument  is unique to Legazpi City in Albay. It used to be located in the seafront district but was overtaken by slums. It has since been relocated to the front grounds of the Post Office Building in Barangay Lapu-Lapu near the city center. It has been nominated as a national cultural heritage monument.

PHOTO: Chriistopher Aquino

The Angelus

In the purple dusk

We drop everything to face

The direction of the bells

(Much like Muslims facing Mecca),

 

To pray solemnly, remember

The Annunciation, and pay

Obeisance to the God 

Who created the universe.

 

                       In our town,

The church was on top of a hill

Overlooking the town. If you were

Looking down at it, to your back

Would be the magisterial—in the dusk—

Silhouette of the Volcano.

 

Well, in fact, the church faced the sea, 

Albay Gulf to the east, where Legazpi, 

The port city, met the sunrise and cargo 

Ships bearing goods, later to load copra.

 

If you faced north, as every Boy Scout knows, 

To your right would be the east (Legazpi City), 

To your left, west (the hills of Quidaco),

And south would be the poblacion itself.

                        So our town lived literally

“Under the bell” as they said in colonial

Times. “We’ll give you the municipal

Charter but keep the natives within

Hearing distance,” the hooked-noses said.

 

We had to keep within our designated

Hamlets. For, if we strayed too far

We might never be able to come back,

As we would join the cimarrones.

 

If we stayed too late beyond the curfew

We could be thrown into the cuarteles

Together with the filibusteros,

Insurrectos, and assorted wrongdoers.

 

                        Now “under the bell”

Rings with some irony. We keep pining 

For our old Angelus—when the whole town 

Stopped in the purple dusk, and recalled 

The words of the Angel of the Lord—

 

As we live in too much of a hurry,

Almost mindless, virtually in the speed

Of light: and mourn the irreplaceable

Past with a deep sense of loss.

 

​

Marne Kilates

June 10, 2012

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