Letter in Exile

THREE POEMS

LETTER IN EXILE

Hourly the planes scour the skies to chart

The unchartered defenses of their loved country.

It is summer and the loaded steamers will soon

Unload upon the waiting piers to fill the needs

Of cities laid bare to the deep hunger of the years;

While the rolling valleys move their living

Shoulders of even glades, caught in the palms

Of the undiscriminating sun, begot of the seas.

All these seem to concentrate in their way:

The light that slants to this little tree here,

The effusive drone of the unstopped faucet,

The pen I use, the complicated course of my passion;

Every moment and thought; all moments, all thoughts.

Their sons enter night-clubs; they throw money to waiters;

Bright virgin girls moan in their beds; they dream

Of freedom in bubbles of drunkenness and insanity.

Knowing the tremendous apparatus of this great

Mistake, I think of our favorite islands

Cupped in those dove-like waiting seas,

And our paternal homestead where intriguing

Brothers and silent sisters met at meal-time

To exhibit all types of affection and courtesy.

We were passionate in those days. Our affectionate

Family allowed no sensual amusements.

CARLOS BULOSAN

Recalling all these before the hour of noon,

I thought of you, brother, and wished you

Could watch with me the splendid glide

Of limousines in this street, and in that other,

The endless parade of hungry men and women

Who approached my window at dawn to remind

Me once more of the coughing orbit of life

In this wide land, their loved country.

We didn't have the artist's vision nor the hangman's

Dream to twist the whole of living on our finger;

But in those islands, under common trees we spoke

Of the littlest things with the simplest joy.

There were no books and hard intellectual thoughts,

But we grew into manhood with the music of trees

In our hearts that would not break, breaking

At last to the barrenness of hard city streets.

All of it was anxiety. All the years that passed

For me. And I am still facing a greater anxiety:

The promised happiness that would never come to me.

Ten years for me and twelve for you, and that other,

The other young brother who could not find himself,

Fifteen years-and he was only a child when he came.

But we are still here burning with a thousand fevers,

Though now more discerning, the enemy close at hand.

I was God's wonder boy: but if I did not

Defy the greed of mad men, if I did not save

Beauty from the naked blasphemies of money,

You must know that I cried when the Jews

Were driven from their country, when the Negroes

Were burned in their homes. You must know

That with these feeble hands I crept to the window,

Unashamed to die in a world gone mad with power.

It will pass away. There is an end to everything.

Power and greed will ravage beauty and give us

Loneliness. But the sadness will come to pass.

So live the New Year flooding the city with noises,

Like tragic noises of revolution, reaching me

Like a heart-stroke. All will move forward on

The dangerous course of history that never stops

To rectify our tragic misgivings and shame.