Nature's social law*

1.
"We are that part
of Nature
shaping land sea and air--
understanding how the seasons
know when to change,
satisfying the wants of the hacendados
according to their laws."

2.
"We will be that part
of Nature
shaping social history--
understanding how men
know when to change,
satisfying each man woman and child
according to their needs."

3.
Some old travelers and I continue
reading the signs of the times
and imagine
peace.






_______________
*From Chapter 11, Fractured Memories

Unfettered wind*

1.
We were the dusky maya.
Sometimes we flitted
among the enameled branches
of the hacendado's cage.
We mostly skipped and hopped
with pruned wings.

2.
Then we read:

"Upon freedom
from men administering men
Man will evolve to the next Unity
in the realm of Nature.

"We will be the eagle
over the bluffs
sailing the currents
of the east wind --
our nature unfettered. 

"Our mind and body
uncaged."

3.
Meanwhile
we are growing back
our heart
and our wings.




*Chapter 10, Fractured Memories

Purpose served*

I imagine –

1.
Down the hill
the brush caressed his crumpled body
a human rights warrior
bearing badges of defiance
now crusty claret.

Manny lay cold and spent
like a hammer in a corner
of the smithy’s dirt floor
rusting, unnoticed.

In quiet confidence, he had forged
other dreamers in his ways--
scores of cadres to help frame
an unfettered future
then, still in his mind’s eye
and in others’, too.

This hammer had served faithfully.

2.
Before, a hammer--now, rusting iron.
It returns to the earth in its new state
like fallen leaves and wilted flowers
and people’s tears--
its purpose served.

"Death is simply another state.
Each people’s worker is part of a dialectic. "
Manny’s death merely transformed one part
and created a new, more discerning unity.

The warrior had lived his poem,
the poet had lived his war.

Though stilled, he is still of the species.
His thoughts and words and works
resonate in the lives of people
around whom he wrapped his heart.
They're also spawning new dreamers.

3.
Fellow travelers are grasping and defending--
and improving on--his life and their own
as men and Man.
Deeded now to the owners of surplus labour
the Worker, reaching some critical mass
will be principal in the spring.

The principal of the future
in time will free the birds of peace
and freedom.
And, I imagine, Manny’s eyes--
glasses off--will be smiling then.





*Chapter 9, Fractured Memories

[In memory of Emmanuel “Manny” Yap who disappeared in the 70s during the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines; November 5 is his birthday]

Protracted journey*

1.
“The tyrants' prisons will find difficult to break
the spirit and firm resolve
the workers’ theory and practice mold.”

2.
While many travelers lost their lives
in many different ways,
others did give up.
Some did break down,
others were co-opted.

Still, we're told --
new travelers are backpacking anew
in regions not unlike Isabela,
"learning from the masses."
Not unlike the earlier martyrs
they're modeling "simple living
and hard struggle."

In the march to ten thousand barrios
even as the white storm
periodically stalls their journey,
the new travelers persist, we're told.

3.
The birthing of the new --
protracted, then violently sudden --
it’s Nature’s nature.



*Chapter 8, Fractured Memories

God's time*

1.
One was taught to expect as I –

With Alienation firmly grasped
in God’s time the people will meld
their political will into a tight fist.

"Led by their advanced ranks
the people will crush the albatross
on their necks."

2
A cleansing wildfire will rage
and across plantations and factories
and inner cities
will blaze a new world unbridled.

The people’s hearts will burn like the sun
purging historical memories, long glutted
with measured lies and co-opted glories.

3.
In God’s time nothing more will there be
to justify weapons and war
and weeping widows.

As above, so below.



*Chapter 7, Fractured Memories

Red rose*

1.
At the former seminarian’s funeral march
along the route of red flags and angry banners
the dictator’s black-garbed enforcers stood.
Peering through helmet slits, their eyes betrayed
a sense of disbelief, and maybe respect --
Loyola Heights was a white area after all.

The eyes of Bill’s comrades reflected clenched fists
raised, and tempered resolve.
The grief of the mourning marchers was morphing
into courage, burning the fog of their fears.

Loyola Heights was a white area -- but not then.

2.
On his casket a single red rose Bill’s brother laid.
Stepping back, he saluted crisply and mourners noticed
his uniform with U.S. Air Force patches.

Bill had chosen the road less taken.

As the casket sought the moist earth
Bill’s comrades burst into the Internasyonal
pumping their arms to its pulsing tempo.
As more mourners joined the chorus
the strokes of fists rose higher, punching the heavens
invoking justice as their human right.
Bill’s comrades and the mourners became one.

The hammer loomed larger back then.

3.
The pretenders in the palace would have wanted
the mourners to see and hear
none of the truths
that were freed back then.

But that day
the hammer did loom larger.




*Chapter 6, Fractured Memories

[In memory of William (Bill) Begg, killed by the Marcos dictatorship’s soldiers in 1975 in the Philippines.]

Aberrant yarns*

1.
Nature --
in the pages of history
man’s greatest friend
man's greatest foe.

To survive, our putative mandate has been
to study and shape and harvest Nature --
for the sake of all men at all times.

“From each according to one’s talents
to each initially according to one’s labours
to each ideally according to one’s needs.”

3.
In fact our minds have largely been dulled
by a persistent paradigm of alienation –
about the nature of Nature and the nature of man
about the fruits of Nature and the fruits of man’s labour.

Our social nature has grown aberrant
long hostage to the cultural lies
of the court's weavers of sand.

4.
We have to write our own history
of Nature and man.





*Chapter 5, Fractured Memories

What Ifs*

1.
We had read:

“Transcending one’s class is living
the dreams of the labouring class,
becoming the labouring class,
being the labouring class.”

2.
What if we did hew our disparate lives
with the steady hands
of the toiling classes,
and grasped history with a proletarian’s mind?

What if we did reckon our days,
like men and women for others --
for brothers and sisters exploited
and bridled?

What if we did become the spark
that lit the prairie fire --
ending man's exploitation
of man?

Musings of a petit-bourgeois...

3.
We muse instead, who took the path
less bloody.






*Chapter 4, Fractured Memories

Critical praxis*

1.
There’s the sun
between heaven and earth.

“Between freedom and the people
there’s the light of working class praxis.”

2.
Some presumed to define and refine
and shine the light.
Worse, some pretended – fervently.
They were not unlike the enemy
the candidates were warned about.

Some old candidates still have their eyes
on the end game aspired after.
They will sum up their lessons.
Their children or their children’s children
will distill their own sun in praxis --
elsewhen.

3.
Nature's law.

Meanwhile
the critical mass is still asleep.
It is still,
objectively, night.



*Chapter 3, Fractured Memories

Bit players*

1.
Like Sandburg’s fog
fractured conversations
would move in,
and on, in their minds:

“They shape our personal stories --
these hardy hands
in factories and fields…."

“They create wealth and histories
not yet their own…."

“Except in true red zones,
they remain nameless
invisible to bourgeois mores….”

2.
Back then, they thought -- and they struggled --
that their lives were petty and feckless
like the bit parts that bit actors profess
they only suffer for food on the table.

They imagined themselves progressives
taking on lead roles for love of the masses.
They referred day to day to little red books
presuming the act bestowed vanguard status.

3.
Down the long road, slowly stripped of dogma
layer by layer, they learned in practice --
there are really no bit roles, only bit players.
They serve the people -- even teachers in classes.

Perhaps the flaws they've unraveled
will better inform future journeys
of new travellers
now less naive.






*Chapter 2, Fractured Memories

In sum*

1.
We had read, in sum:

"We are part of a whole--
the whole being Nature
the part being Man.
And we're Nature's putative avant-garde."

2.
Yet -- men have caused both
wealth and privation
freedom and repression
social order and anarchy.

Men have also caused
famine and plenty
dams and drought
both certitude and doubt.

War and peace.

3.
The most evolved part of Nature?

We needed to be reminded occasionally,
of the protracted process of change--
among men, as in Nature.

Meanwhile, we continue to wash our hands
with the blood of our brothers and sisters.






*Chapter 1, Fractured Memories