Blog Post 96: Deja que un ser amigo

Deja que un ser amigo

For Jose Rizal

Nole me Tangere, brother mine;

not while my words kneel weeping where you fell.Shield me in you shadow, mi hermanoand I will place my hands around your own.I see the pen you hold, JoseMy wrists are shackled to your stake.I feel the bullets biteand I am drowning with you in vermillion pools.En buen hora, mi hermano.Tu sangre cubre el suelo Filipinas.

Hold me while I fall into your grave, oh brother mine.E voy donde con usted no hay esclavos.Sooth my soul, Jose.Take my hand in yours, as now you fly.I came only to share light.But you have shone your lamp across my pathand shown me what you bought with blood.Surely yours was the writer’s journey more than mine.Find favour in my following, Jose

and in your shadow shall I walk,writing with the ink you turned to blood.And when my pen has summon thunder, as did yours,this will be the epitaph that I shall write:Here lies one who found his heart in persecution,who crossed his pen with steel, then laid him down so silent in an unjust shallow grave.

Have they seen, amado hijo?Has your light soaked deep into this soil?Your pen is speaking still, Jose,pouring out the poet’s cry for liberty.Your dying hand will not lie stillpealing to the pain that seeded this land’s soul.

© Michael Forester

Manila

3rd March 2017

“I believe in revelation, but in that living revelation which surrounds us on every side, in that voice, mighty, eternal, unceasing, incorruptible, clear, distinct, universal as is the being from whom it proceeds, in that revelation which speaks to us and penetrates us from the moment we are born until we die.”

Jose Rizal 1861-1896