Up In Baguio Poem by RIC BASTASA

at the Mirador
on top of the hill in Baguio
there we all lived
for a retreat of thirty days
in silence and prayer

at 6 p.m. before dinner
i sit calmly beside a glass window
overlooking the plains below

the pine trees and trails
winding are all gone now
covered by the fog

as though i am now
a resident of the clouds
i hear nothing but the
sounds of gongs
of the natives played
to please their
gods

that was in 1982

when Alan got so hysterical
that the doctor had to inject him to silence him

when Louie stepped out and run at midnight
under the rain crying like a child

when i started to write
the verses of my life because i have forgotten how to cry
how to run away how to be hysterical

when the fog has then become a secret friend
in those thirty days of silence and discovery