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Congregation

For Alma Cruz Miclat, Edna Zapanta Manlapaz,

& the Maningning Miclat Foundation

 

        Field of Faith, Calauan, Laguna

(Or: The Various Names of Peace)

Behind us, the city’s bounty of smoke

And dust, and we come to this sanctuary ready

To shed our burdens of worry and grime.

 

Foot of mountain beside us, cloud-hover

On hill crest: The Deity, the Spirit watches over

Us: What names we have for Benevolence

 

Do not matter in this green silence. We converse

In hushed voices. We address within and about

Us the Sylvan Ancient One, Father of the Stars

 

Unseen in this mild noon, Caretaker of the Glade,

Guardian of Our Original History, Babaylan

Of Our Sacred Wood, resident in the field of our

 

Multifarious faiths. Our newfound trust

In luxuriant leaf, deep root, spreading branches

Guides us through our own labyrinths:

 

Upright trunks of coconut casting their

Elongating shadows on the plush rug

Of carabao grass, slender beings whose crowns

 

Are bursts of perhaps-emerald—my own

Imagined pyrotechnics of steadfast growth

Abiding in bud, stem, frond, whorl, blossom;

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Infinite narrative of water burbling purling

In a spring pool caressing the spirit

Even before massaging the tired spine,

 

Its freshet sound rippling the shifting

Virescent motifs of light on the protean surface.

The black butterfly that joins us for breakfast

 

Is not black at all but the coruscation of all

Colors in the nether depths of light,

Not the absence but the totality of all hues,

 

Eureka of batik-makers, perhaps-angel:

Lingering on Alma’s wrist, wings ethereal,

Eternal, feasting on skin’s salt and warmth,

 

Before flitting to the hibiscus bush to vanish

Without a trace, but only to leave a faint

Flutter to fill some empty chamber of the heart—

 

And my own joyful scrambling for words

To fetch from cloud or mountain or inside the self 

The breath with which to utter the various

                                                                   Names of peace.

 

 

 

Marne Kilates

17 July 2017

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