Author: Luisa A. Igloria

7.

Perennial scrutiny of fog 
over the hills. Here, American
officials can dress like they did
"back home" and not stew

in their own sweat, like  
they would in the lowlands:
long, double-breasted frock coats, 
white dress shirts, silk top hats.

A cravat and a stickpin. Wives
in billowing dark linen skirts. Even 
lower level employees wear three-
piece sack suits: boxy 

jacket, waistcoat, slim-cut 
trousers. For Thanksgving, turkeys 
and cranberries shipped from the United 
States are unloaded at the docks 

in Manila, then carried on the backs 
of mules or native porters. Up the muddy 
mountain trails lined with fern, the purr
of buttonquail zigzagging in the grass.

 

6.

Eight beds under thatched roofs.
Three cottages making up the early
sanatorium. A health-restoring station

for convalescing soldiers. OBJECT NUMBER 
12-61-70/10861.1.4380 in Harvard's Peabody 
Museum shows a wraparound porch or veranda, 

houseposts raised at least four feet from the ground 
and cut from rough timber. The print is black and white 
adhered to paperboard, but in the foreground,  

the unmistakable tint of mossy green. Panoramic 
views of the hills, including the one seen in OBJECT 
NUMBER 12-61-70/10861.1.4380 listed as 

Burying ground for Baguio / Igorots of Baguio, Benguet.

5.

Chartered City, stamped 
crisply on the diagrammed map. 

Sepia pictures capture the sweep
of the newly assembling zones—

A greenway. Main thoroughfare,
the halls of government. The post

office at one end, the market at 
the other. And branching out, plots 

for residences. On market day, carts 
and baskets piled high with cabbages, 

beans, kamote; bananas, wild rice. 
Sacks of highland coffee. Natives

wearing the novelty of an Americana
over g-strings. Frost in September.

4.

Tents pitched on a green
portion of land called O-ring-ao:
summer camp and training center
for teachers armed with chalkboards
and The Baldwin Primer (1899).

At night, fires burned
with resinous pine wood. Tin
plates passed from the mess
tent after the summons of 
the dinner bell.

Beneath the trees, lessons begin 
with Aa Bb Cc; illustrations of apples, 
baseball bats, cats. The girls have been 
given white blouses. The boys trade in
their loincloths for cotton drawers.

3.

T-squares, compasses. Graphite, 
steel-nib pens, india ink on drafting 
cloth thin enough to let the light 
pass through. Here are plans 

meant to withstand the very run
of time. Over the orange groves,
a new-pencilled name. And along
the ridge, a row of government 

houses: a cabinet. A group
of tiny rooms within rooms where
governors in hats and tailored
suits sit in front of a fireplace.

Sanatorium, ampitheatre, mess hall—
all drawn as part of one line without
lifting the pen. But the mountains  
will never fit into that grid.


 

2.

Reverberation of hammers
blasting through rock face.
Slag heap and slurry,
as switchbacks 

take shape. From the low-
lands to the last camp, ropes
around their waists, men press 
themselves into the pale 

scar they're gouging out
of the mountains' cheeks.
Shrikes spear the evening
with their cries. 

 

1.

Scarves of mist weave
through pine. On the forest
floor, needles fallen through 
the air like rain. In the valley,

the river cuts a line of liquid
mercury, branching in many
directions. There is that one
day when cattle turn

their heads and villagers 
put their scythes down.
Perhaps it is the moment 
when carts arrive 

with tripods, transits, 
theodolites. White flags
pinned to the earth, as if
that's all it takes.

 


 

                                                                       

[In memoriam, Richard L. Bach; 1938-2026]


                                                                                      "a small repetitive task—
          ritual kinship of every living thing."
                                                       ~ Cody-Rose Clevidence


Prairie grass and wildflowers, morels        waiting
to be gathered at the forest's edge—  yours

in this beautiful life where                 all that the mind touches
might be brought to bear             on questions that trouble us

Here is a secret                                            You were not the only one 
who kept back a seed                                        beneath your tongue

There have been times I've wanted       the darkness to admit me
when I could not bear                   the starkness of winter

We are, said Heidegger, the only               creatures aware of their own
mortality                     But now I want to imagine the most exquisite chorus

An aria of onrushing                 Singing into the throat of the abyss
These increments of time              flecks of gold suspended in a bottle

We've poured them into a glass                    Drank until we couldn't tell
what was enfolded                                       which had come to enfold     





               
                                                                                                            

~ “After great pain, a formal feeling comes—” (Emily Dickinson, 372)


How much time is needed for what must be endured?

In the third movement of Tod und Verklärung, Death invites
a peasant to dance the Trepek in a blizzard until he freezes to death. 

That almost formal moment of stillness in the center of catastrophe—

A once-in-a-century event, they say.

But it happens again in less than a week.

When all the protocols for protection are gone, what can you expect?

First— Chill— then Stupor— then the letting go—

It will be a winter like no other. It will be a summer like no other.

In song 10 of Franz Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, the central protagonist and a miller’s daughter sit by a brook.

She sings, Es kommt ein Regen, ade, ich geh nach Haus. A rain is coming – goodbye, I’m going home. That’s how he knows their love is doomed.