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The Day of the Manangs

I.   Beata

 

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1.

She woke at four at dawn,

To catch the morning mass.

Devotion was a scapular,

Salvation was a wafer of Host.

 

She prepared the altar vestments,

Laid them out in the sacristy:

Alb, amice, maniple: uncrease them

For the saintly, sleepy Padre.

 

For he shouldn’t see her at all, 

She’d leave no trace but the scent

Of sandalwood, as he pulled chasuble

Over his head, assisted by altar boy.

 

2.

A breakfast of thick chocolate,

Sipped from small pusuelos,

Ensaimada and sugared margarine,

Extra treat of suman and latik,

 

Juicy bits about last year’s sagalas,

The latest misadventures of colegialas,

Made her mornings with other manangs

In the quiet kitchen of the convento.

 

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3.

Her single life was a blessing

For her nieces and her nephews—

She pinched them now and then

When they were rowdy at catechism.

 

Her habito of brown, tied at the waist

With yellow cord, was imitative 

Of San Jose. Veil pulled low over her face 

Made her look like a grieving widow.

 

4.

At Angelus she was back

In the slanting light

Of the side-chapel window.

 

As the cura sang a requiem

By catafalque and censer smoke,

As the lugubrious agonias rang,   

 

Frightening the bell tower 

Sparrows, she faded even more,

Kneeling in her corner pew,

 

Counting her decades, atoning

For the sins of the world, in a life

Fully in thrall of the Holy.                                                 

 

(September 8, 2006)

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