A Dream of Drums and Drumbeating

You had it all in,

this huge dream

of drums

of drumbeating

in an ancient ceremony

in the wilderness

of your mind.



One day

you gathered

us all

and announced

the intentions

of your sorrowing soul.



We were your children,

true, but we had

the fields for the kites

we had the brook

and the river

for the freeflowing dive

into their boundless bossoms

their fluid energies

welcoming us

in our quest

for a memory

once familiar.



You said you will

make a drum.



Or you will make

many drums.



You planned

the steps to making

the beating for

the first time

in the final hours

of the summer

we lost her,

the madonna

of our rising sun.



Did you say

you would have

to look for

the hard wood,

dip it in some concoction

of witless wisdom and sad song,

their secrets

to be unveiled

by each beat

we make

of the drum of our days?



You had it done right,

with the cowhide

tanned

treated

teased

to make the music

you say you want

to while away

the countless regrets

of rainy nights.



And we were one

with you.



We dreamed

of the drum too.



We dreamed

of the frenzied

beating of drunken

fingers tapping

on the miracles

of sounds

of feet

on the dusty earth.



But the drought

came too long

in 68.



The drought did

not leave in 69.



And so the village

prayed

sent petitions

to the patron

of furrowed fields

furiously awaiting

the raindrops

that should have

raged on

the ever-willing soil

buried themselves there

until the seeds came alive

with the promise

of food aplenty

of faith renewed.



The rains

did not come

in the summer of

your making of the drums.



The drumbeating

did not come as well.



You cooked the hide,

feasted on it as if

there were no tomorrow

and you told us

about children

being better than drums

being better than drumbeating

being better than the music

of rains teased

by your rain dance.





A. S. Agcaoili

March 22, 2005