An earthquake topples the bell tower

 
of the oldest church on Bantayan island.
It was built in 1839, in Spanish times,

with coral-flecked stones that local
fishermen mortared with a paste of lime,
water, sand, and egg whites. This  

has always been a country of calamities 
both natural and human-made: every  
typhoon a dervish unhinged, every road 
 
and bridge swept away by floods let loose 
as pockets of politicians fill with obscene 
gain. Perhaps we've put too much trust 

in catechisms of reward in some afterlife. 
Perhaps we keep turning the other cheek 
for the same hand to slap again. 

Mouths open in ejaculations— O God, why 
have you abandoned us? —short, spontaneous 
prayers flung skyward (but also, the release 

of semen— milky, viscous liquid that can bind 
one body to another). When we say history,  
then, we also mean the chronicle of every 

tremor felt in time. Gulfs breached, 
channels entered; flags planted in the sand. 
Plaster saints, halos flickering in the fire.