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Philippine Pastorale

At the edge of the sugar cane field

The water buffalo stopped to graze

And its master turned his gaze 

At the photographer’s camera.

Beyond the meadow, after

The silhouetted tree line, 

The mountains rose in their bald

Majesty, above a silvery mist,

And the clouds―perhaps a gathering storm.

What to make of the scene? 

What does it signify, if anything at all? 

I will not hazard a guess or make 

The landscape speak my thoughts, 

Even biases. Except that this is no 

Amorsolo’s Philippine light, radiant 

And yellow, but an afternoon 

Where the stage lights have been 

Dimmed, a lazy, somnolent interlude, 

Before it is interrupted by the lowing

Of the carabao. How about 

Lucio San Pedro’s “Sa Ugoy ng Duyan” 

Playing in the background, before Vivaldi’s

Summer storm comes thundering in.

Or Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony―

But these are what I mean 

By my biases intruding, arbitrary 

Soundtracks imposed on the scene. 

Perhaps the post-prandial notions

Of the landowners, the hacenderos

Lounging in their verandas―Before 

The orange flames lap the horizon 

Beyond the march of evacuees

In Peque Gallaga’s Oro, Plata, Mata.

Or the bloodbath in Behn Cervantes’

Sakada. What inventions of the mind…

What dire forebodings for a pastorale.

  

Marne Kilates

30 October 2021

Nicky Ledesma/CCN Photo

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