The Dream of An Angel

A young girl portrays an angel lifting the black cloth covering a statue of the Virgin Mary during the traditional “Salubong” of the resurrected Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday in Barangay Pulang Lupa 1, C5 Extension, Las Piñas City. N. J. Orbeta, Inquirer, Apr 12/09

I am an angel for 

this Sunday of an Easter

and I am dressed 

in the oft-white of ritual.

I am not sure if I knew

what I am doing, 

little girl angel

that I am. 

I speak of my act ten-twenty-thirty

years from now 

when I shall have more

mind to offer, 

not this reluctance

of my right hand 

as I hang in ropes

tied to my young girl's body.

It is this ceremony of the centuries

of denial, colonized or inculcated

in the head by prayers heard

or imagined, like hell.

This is the one I have been told to do:

remove the veil of the mother

that sorrows so. 

The week past was misery

in a different crescendo, with the poor

gathering their strength to come to Cutud

and there watch the fallen Christ fall

once again in the man who had promised

to be nailed a hundredfold. 

And now this, and now this:

I lift the holy veil, silky black and blue, 

of the mother that suffers so

she with her agony as agony can be

watching her god-man of a son 

go through it all, 

this sin and this sinning

this show of a gallery 

wanting his blood in gallons

like oil from Baghdad

and raging breath from the cells

of Guantanamo

and then his body, bruised,

battered, left for dead

but will soon rise again

as it is today when I wipe

her tears finally, wipe them 

with my young girl's fingers.

 

I do not know, I really don't

as I live in a country run by patriarchs

and their wives and dark memory

eager to await for Lent with their song

that speaks of evil in other places

but not in this country

when all I see are beggars

hands outstretched for a morsel

of bread and being

mendicants asking for mercy

pedestrians walking endlessly

to altars without cold saints

and miraculous waters

but blood and more of them

blood oozing out the streets

blood in our hands clasped in adoration

blood in our senators' chambers

blood in the house of thieves

them men and women who should know

where human justice begins

so that god's pity ends.

I lift her mourning mother's veil

and in the years ahead

I will remember that today,

this 12th of April

in the year of the Lord

in this common era of our grief

our world's will to live

is will unto itself

like prayers to all mothers

that grieve, like incantation

to the god-man that rises

from the loneliness of his grave.

A Solver Agcaoili

Hon, HI/Apr 12/09