Prototype

Erasure poem based on The Philippines Past and Present
by Dean C. Worcester (Secretary of the Interior of the Philippine 
Islands 1901–1913; Member of the Philippine Commission, 1900–1913);
in Two Volumes — With 128 Plates; New York: The Macmillan Company,
1914
 
From Chapter XVII, "Baguio and the Benguet Road"

*

In June 1892            sitting in a native house on a hill
anxiously awaiting the boats



                        we had some mysterious procedure for killing the tamarau


                     Meanwhile


                                           in the
 highlands of Northern Luzón          there was

a region of pines and oaks          even
occasional frosts

                              a hopeless tangle
of     rankest     vegetation     trees  draped with ferns
orchids and thick moss    dripping with moisture 




springs of potable water




                the country was very dangerous


                        he would send a troop of cavalry with us

                             we expected to go by road as far as
Naguilian              thence on horseback to Trinidad and Baguio   in Benguet



       Much of the way      was a mere V in the earth     deep mud at the bottom


                          the whole

countryside was buried in         densest tropical vegetation


                                     when within the space of a hundred yards

rounded knolls                           there were scores of places where
to have a beautiful house lot one needed only to construct driveways and go to work with a
lawn-mower