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Antonio Luna's Unforgettable Night
AntonioLuna.jpg

1

When dawn tints the horizon

its faint light barely reaching                                           

the shadows on the cobblestones

 

When all the capiz windows

are shut but one from where waft

strains of Mozart or Mendelssohn 

 

then

 

“La Bella Filipina” by Ignacio Masaguer

“La Sampaguita” by Dolores Paterno

when outside not a soul is stirring

 

The party almost ends except 

for her looking out at me

the gas light fringing her hair

 

And her mestiza dress 

the embroidery on her sleeves

the transparent piña and satins

 

Wrapping her in vaporous gauze

only moments ago she was saying

my name in that languorous

 

manner of hers why 

couldn’t I stay longer 

when she knew I couldn’t

​

2

I gaze at her now in my memory

of all Manila’s Christmas Eves

the dinner table never cleared

 

But replenished for the late 

or the lingering guests and the couple

slipping into the dimly-lit hall

 

I gaze at her now riding her

horse to a trot down the Malecon

or coming out of her swim

 

Down Ermita beach her hair

reaching just below the waist

and coming up to me her fresh

 

skin smelling of tanglad

or the young rice flakes whose

fragrance I cannot forget

​

​

​

​

(Poem conjectural & partly found 

in Vivencio Jose’s The Rise and Fall of Antonio Luna)

​

​

3

I gaze at her now at a fiesta

in Sampalok, at Capitan Ambrosio’s

house running to me after a dance

 

in the rustle of satin and brocade

her cheeks flushed her eyes

drawing me to their vertiginous

 

depths

 

as she catches her breath

near the window and hands me

a rose I couldn’t stay I said

 

my luggage was ready

my passport was in my pocket 

my poor mother had cried silently

 

Next day I was leaving for Paris 

for Spain and Europe

that other half of our world

 

4

I gaze at her now, briefly in my 

memory, as I enter the grounds 

of this quiet church in Cabanatuan

 

 

27 November 2015 

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