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(T  H  E     M  A  K  I  L  I  N  G     S  U  I  T  E    #2)
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This poem now included 

in the new collection, Quiet Days on Makiling

D O N A T O ' S    L E G E N D

1

Three knobby fingers of ginger were all

He had to show for the encounter.

But what a heartache it left; in thrall

He wandered as if dazed with ether

In the crackling air as when the wood

Has been grazed with lightning

And he could smell, not hear, he could,

The crack of thunder. Now pining

For her, his house at the foot of Makiling

Seemed empty. Not his dog who looked

At him as a god, wagging his tail, whining,

Could distract his ache, he was hooked.

O Maria of the mountain fastness,

You took my heart to the wilderness.

 

 

2

The yard he found her in as she hung

Her scant laundry was small and windy,

Good to dry her sheets; and as she sang

With the breeze, her voice was heady.

It was as if the mountain had enclosed him

When she cast him a glance. (Gasping,

The butterfly, newly free from its dim

Cocoon, sees the whole forest fluttering!)

Makiling never looked like this, he thought.

The young woodsman long ago had seen

The carnaval de Calamba, fire eaters caught

In their mouth the tip of torch, he was keen

To watch them spew a roaring blaze;

He throbbed as if he’d just begun his days.

4

In his small plot Donato tended his days

But what he plucked from the earth baffled

Him: they glowed as if with the sun’s rays;

They never spiced his stew but dazzled

The town market, where he traded them

For more than twice he needed. Thereupon                             

The stream of new relatives he couldn’t stem,

But his natural generosity just took them on.

And so Donato was changed from reclusive

Hunter to everyone’s savior from debt,

Though as the days stretched he was restive,

And the town saw he could no longer be kept.

At end of dry season, in a downpour at noon

He and his dog Makiling took all too soon.

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5

Was it the second umbrage the goddess took

After they once abused her largess, they mused.

What manners, she must have said as she shook

Her head, not getting back what they borrowed and used.

The goddess kept her secret: Donato the hunter,

Endeared though to the townfolk he'd become,

The munificent recluse must turn into a true giver

Equipped with the people's awakened wisdom.

In a dream the goddess came to him and spoke:

"You must still know and feel the people's pain,

God-given One, and discern the dreadful yoke

They bear. Seek and join those who'd break the chain.

A life devoted to a sacred purpose is what you need;

Be not a tree without shade, nor a poisonous weed."

​

 

Marne Kilates

(September 22, 2014; June 26, 2016)

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3

“Plant just one finger of ginger in the earth,

Donato,” she said in the most melifluous

Voice. And in her eyes he saw the birth

Of the universe. Oh, the vaporous

Springs of Los Baños exhaled their sulfur

Breath, but it was the scent of jasmine

He caught, not the carrion loved by vulture

Eyeing its wounded prey. It was the Virgin

Spoke, he thought, as his catechist taught

Him. Stars shone ‘round her head, it seemed,

And as if he was guided where he ought

To bury the pungent roots—there, rimmed

By the bush of herbs he sowed them under

The dirt with half his will, half his wonder.

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Go to The Makiling Suites #3
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