Prayer to a dark god

NAZARENE’S FAITHFUL. Unfazed by President Benigno Aquino III’s terror warning, millions of Filipino Catholics took part in the annual procession for the Feast of the Black Nazarene from the Quirino Grandstand to the Quiapo Church in Manila Monday, Jan. 9, 2011—Inquirer, Jan 11, 2011

We come in barefoot
as required and the street
pavement is a bed of hope
for this god-forsaken land,
our own.

It is a sea of maroon, your
color, dark hardwood of Mexico
carved out of the passion
of colonized hands, veined
for crossing our fingers now famished
for what truth is, what is in here,
in this Quiapo sun shining through
even if night has come
to conquer us.

From afar, between a memory
and an experience shaped in words
a hundred times, we see you,
crucified of the earth looking
for what faith can do to lead
us to a road back to where
we all should go. Our president
speaks of terror lurking in between
the shadows of fear and another.
Bahala ditan. The gospel is the same
for each one, as in death too
when it comes. In the meantime,
we take our kerchief, wipe it unto
which part of your feet, lord, colored
and wooden from a faraway sea,
a he-god with thorns, your blood
dripping with our sweat, you
who will see us through
until the end of time, our own.

We promise a day of reverence,
and a full night too, the whole cycle
of the watch hour by the Mercury
that tells us of drugs we need
to buy to ease the pains on the knee
after walking from shrine’s grieving door
to your mourning altar.

Hon, HI/
Jan 11, 2011