MANILA, Philippines—Thousands of Muslims celebrated the Eid’l Fitr Tuesday marking the end of their holy month of Ramadan as fierce fighting broke out in Mindanao between government forces and Islamic secessionist rebels, killing three soldiers and wounding 12 others. T. Santos & A. Papa, Inquirer, 9/30/08
Love has other strange nicknames.
Or war. We declare a ceasefire
with life and all those that make us
see that this is worth it, this loving
that sees the other in the flesh,
your heart beating in sync with the seasons
of praying and prayers. A number of these
that tell of leaves falling tell of lives felled,
and here, in my country of thieves
and political sexual languor that has the contours
of greed, we bury fathers so wives
become weeping widows
we take out the heart of mothers
and offer them to machines that kill
to bullets that snuff out hunger
so children will become orphans
we murder dreams, those from the young
and those from the old and make tombs
out of our wishes for a handful of rice
to ease our grief for all the grieving
that we do for having come to late
to the dining table reserved for the elect.
In the meantime, while we are at it,
this business of naming what we do not have,
we claim that we know how to love,
and indeed, we know how! Why bother
being present in christenings and births,
or this feast that talks of our thanks to the Spirit
when it is far easier to act out what murder
can our hands do best? We end one more season,
and we begin with another one without learning
anything about what gives
in life as in death, but more on our knees.
A Solver Agcaoili
Hon, HI/Oct 1/08
