The Ruins Of San Pablo Poem by Francisco R. Albano

(San Pablo, Isabela, Phjilippines)


There it stands, remnant of superstructure,
Straight from our Spanish colonial past,
Its roots reaching far deep into the old world.
There it stands built by faith and corvee labor
In a town now an arena of protracted people's war.

Centuries of stone surround the construct
Surely envisioned to last. This is the way
Our ancestors decided to live forever to touch us.
They claim place and time in the people's history,
By the grace of angels and saints and gargoyles.

They claim unity and struggle with stubborn shrubs
And creepers feeding from the rocks and crannies.
They claim the friendship and the cruelty of bats,
Birds and butterflies; of sun, wind and rain.
They thrust themselves into our present and future.

Inside the roofless relic the people have built
A chapel singing of death, dreams and life
In the flow of succeeding generations. And so it is
That the people have received their living past,
And celebratikon continue beyond imperialist wars.

Red brick walls, buttresses and an imposing tower
Remain. You can see where stood the Lady chapel
Asserting the dynamic of womanhood in social life.
The ruins of San Pablo! They limn a wholeness
Not too difficult to complete, brick by brick.