Ode to the City

I wrote this while daydreaming about the Second World War. The destruction of Manila during the Liberation equaled the ruins of Warsaw and Stalingrad. I hope that such fate will not happen again.

With mournful eyes, I saw the sun fade

Into the dark fumes bleeding from the ruin

My hopes were subdued by the summer night

But the cannon’s roar kept me awake

The days drifted by but I did not notice

The sunlight might not have remembered me

Oh, I cannot even remember the sensation

The craze that makes the caged bird sing

Despite the loneliness behind the brass bars

Shall the sun refuse to shed its radiance

It loses its thirst for life, dear City,

As you have lost such thirst for life

The ground is parched like my spirit

For the sacred blood spilt here is bitter

The endless marching of brave warriors

And the coalesced beat of the mallet and drum

The things that I used to dread and still dread

Continue to provoke my state of mind

And in this world where we struggle, O City

True peace is in solitude and in madness

Reviews

[R J Askew]

I buy the conclusion in the last two lines, though the madness of the madman seems ideal perhaps. Cities are on the rise as people flock to them, but I think their unrestrained growth is a poor way to be because most of them are not beautiful. But then people do not flock to them for beauty, but for opportunity and a better life. Nature will rectify the balance at some point.