Poetry&Stuffby
MARNE KILATES
MARNE
S
KRIPTS
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
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
