Composed in 2010, Daldalliasat was read during the Baguio Panagbenga Flower Festival last February--at the Audio-Visual Room of the College of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines Baguio.
JOURNEYS/DALDALLIASAT
1.
This looking for the pot of gold
This looking for the rich gentlemen
This looking for the young years
In Darayday, Santa Maria and Gabu
This looking for another shore
Is it looking for what is not there?
2.
In Honolulu, did the sun set in the west?
Did you see the full moon at noon?
Were you looking for the bar girl
Or was it Baguio's naked shadow in a dump
At a Waimanalo back street?
Was the apparition at Halekulani
on the beach at Waikiki a memory
of the white sands of Saud in Pagudpud?
3. What did you say to him--the huge Polynesian
in rumpled coat- who begged for a dollar as you
stepped out of Dimsum after gorging on noodles
in the late hour?
Did you wave him away? Or was it the grease man
stretching his arms for alms on the pavement beside
the Catholic church along Quezon boulevard?
8.
Stop it! Stop it!
Was the Caucasian in red-blue jogging pants screaming?
Was she terrified of the camera aimed at a grove of pine trees
Disappearing in the mist behind her?
Or was it the hound dog barking in nightmarish dreams?
9.
Whatever, arise old friend, walk again
the meandering path home where waits
The New York Times' best seller: it is a must
Read tonight while brown men toil, their color
Turning bloody red in the sun in that sad country
Of shattered windows and vanished dreams.
Caption, from left to right and down: downtown LA, USA, shot from the 5th floor of Sinai-Cedars Hospital; Vivo city, Singapore; Burnham park, Baguio city during a Panagbenga parade; farmers harvesting rice in San Mateo, Isabela; stopping for gas on the way to Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay, where Manny Pacquiao fought Oscar de la Hoya (middle photo).
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