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4

From down south in Albay, to meet with farmers

And peons (the Ilustrados were still drunk

 

With their abaca wealth and couldn’t be persuaded

To join the rising), Andres had to get back fast,

 

If not by boat, then a relay of caretelas and escorts,

Skirting Nueva Caceres, all through Bitukang Manok,

 

Lucena, Gumaca, Siain, the forests of Tayabas,

Through Calamba and Bai, Los Baños, Munting Lupa.

 

The Diario had been shuttered, the movement

Had been betrayed! Of all people, it was the cajista!

 

And all for a small dispute about a salary increase.

He told his sister about the missing fonts and those

 

Who stole the K’s during the Bosses’ long siesta,

And she couldn’t help but tell the nuns in turn.

 

Oh, that charming little poema was still nagging

To be written even as Andres hurried back

 

So his people could regroup. It had to be a song

That could make a soldier weep and fight.

 

He had the first stanza full, swirling ‘round his

Brain, and like Athena issuing from Zeus’ head:

 

 

5

What other love exceeds

In purity and greatness

The love for native earth?

What other love indeed?

None other that I need!

 

 

6

Thus Kalayaan was now a real word, born

In print, to be held in people’s hands, read

Aloud, pronounced by roof of mouth and tongue,

 

The ubiquitous prefix and suffix of Being,

Embracing the Root, describing intensity

Or state, nadir or absolute, lack or excess.

 

Though nowhere could its root be traced,

Not by Marcelo who first used it, still it could

Be guessed it came from our Malay cousins.

 

Spoken and published, Kalayaan was a new

World: its physical fount a font stolen

From the colonizers’ wooden typecase,

 

Its physical form steel from Bodoni’s foundry:

Majuscule and minuscule, all the serifs and

Ascenders of it, like arms raised rejoicing,

 

Incarnated in the narrative and verse

Of a free people, baptized in the blood of heroes,

Forged in battle, Revolution, noble thought.

Minerva p.3
Cajista1.jpg
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