Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Baguio Haikus (A Hundred Years After)
A complex city
Reduced to a dilemma,
Crowded hideaway.
A monstrosity
Transformed into grotesqueness,
A concrete pine tree.
Where are the cone trees
Glistening on the hillsides?
Cut! Behind billboards!
A mall-shaped giant
Sucks the city of its life:
Light, water, space, sense.
A friend of mine said:
Here's proof to all of where not
To build a city.
The frost disappeared,
The iced-covered roadsides passed
A long time ago.
Where is the native
With swarthy skin and g-string?
Where is innocence?
Whose vision was it
To raise a town in the clouds?
There, ask the horses!
Before a town rose
There lay a village serene,
Then the bombs rained down.
Over this city
They've fought to get to the gold;
Now there's only fools'.
City-dwellers come
Not to hike pine-scented trails
But to dance and drink.
The height of folly
Was not the Babel Tower;
It's now, it's this, here!
Faith's grand melting pot
Rests on this pillared plateau,
Each heart a stranger.
If they all declare
To agree to disagree,
Who will lead the blind?
Strawberry, lemon,
Broccoli, beans and carrots:
Live, grow, give, nourish.
Here is nature's nest;
The good, the vile may leave it
Better or viler.
Thanks for all the years
We walked the dark lonely paths
To find life's treasures.
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