nameabledays Archive One

Domingo de Ramos (Palm Sunday), from CUARESMA, edited by Gilda Cordero Fernando


LOLO PEDRO

Yesterday the children sang
Hossana filio David!
The young, pale palm branches
Woven with birds, festooned
With papel de japon, purple and red,
Waved in the yellow morning,
As the Spanish priest stepped out
Into the patio of the church on the hill,
His path strewn with petals:
Rose, rosasitos, chantal, marigold,
Lantana, ylang-ylang, frangipani, cosmos…
Was it a memory or a dream?
An acolyte swung the censer,
The priest dipped his aspergillum
Into the bowl of holy water and waved it
Over the heads of the fervent faithful
Shaking their palm branches…
Hosanna filio David!

My knees wobble, my fingers
Are stiff on the fingerboard,
Now and then I beat with the bow
Of my violin, to keep the children
Singing in time and in tune,
And from their dais of bamboo,
Walled with coconut fronds
Woven with birds, festooned
With purple and red papel de japon,
Keep them showering the priest
With their petals, in unison.
But some of them are so engrossed
With their basket of petals, wrapped
And tasseled with curled strips
Of crepe paper… Oh, one basket
Has caught fire from a candle,
I point at it with my bow, Carajo!
I must keep them in time and in tune,
They must shower the priest
With petals in unison, they must
Put out the fire now eating the tassel…
Hossana filio David!

The faithful have gone home,
Leaving the patio empty but for the flowers,
Multicolored paper, and a basket still
Half-full of petals, its curled crepe paper
Wrapping and tassels half-burnt.
Was it a memory or a dream?
Tomorrow I must resume
Rehearsals for next Sunday,
For the other set of children… must
Make it out of this haze… must
Make it till next Sunday when,
Fitted with wings cut from kerosene tin
And painted silver, all scrubbed up,
White-gowned and glowing
Like the cherubs they’re playing,
Casting petals at the tiny golden-armored
St. Michaels being lowered down on strings
From an opening in the blue-and-white
Cotton clouds at the top of the castillo,
They too must sing in time and in tune,
Alleluia! Alleluia! Re…Resurrexit…
Cast their petals in unison,
As the tiny St.Michaels (their tin wings
Being flapped by strings) unwrap
The shrouds from the Risen Christ
And the Mater Dolorosa as they meet,
Riding shaky palanquins, He showing
The spear wound on his side, and she
Fresh from her Soledad
The night before…solitarily grieving,
Searching for His grave, aided only
By the mastraca, for with God still dead,
They couldn’t ring the bells…


A Salubong (known to us Bikolanos only as Alleluia). This one is in Cebu where at one time, according to CUARESMA, as many as 50 little girls lifted the veil of Jesus' grieving Mother as she met her Risen Son.


I almost cannot see beyond
The bow of my violin, I try not to fall asleep
Between the verses of Regina coeli litare…
I resin my bow, I tune my ancient Amati
(Gift from beloved Padre Florentin,
His own prized heirloom he said I deserved,
Probably stolen by a gypsy—his great grandfather—
Now repaired with langka wood),
The score sheet keeps fading before me…
Ay, Perdon, Dios na Kagurangnan!
I must make it till next Sunday,
Before Andoy, himself feeble and crumbling
Like the stairs to the belfry,
Rings up the Agonias for me
Cling clang, cling clang clang!
Before I end up being sung to
With the Liberame Domine,
And just one name in a list
Of our Dear Departed being intoned
By a priest swinging his censer
Before a purple-covered catafalque
In the fading light
Of an empty church at dusk…
There’s no one in the choir loft,
Not Maestra Ibing wailing a coloratura
From Marcelo Adonai’s Requiem…
But children…

Oh, the children!
They’re waiting for me on the patio
And they are singing so well!
Hossana filio David!
Hossana filio David!
They’re waiting for me at the town plaza,
And from the improvised choir lofts
On both sides of the castillo,
They’re casting their petals… on my path
Alleluia! Alleluia! Re…Resurrexit…
Is it Domingo de Pascua already?
The children, oh, the children,
They’re singing so well!
All scrubbed up and glowing,
Are they angels?
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Is it a memory or a dream?

Marne L. Kilates
(March 17, 2005)