Moonlight on Manila Bay

by Fernando M. Maramag (1912)

A light, serene, ethereal glory rests

Its beams effulgent on each crestling wave;

The silver touches of the moonlight wave

The deep bare bosom that the breeze molests;

While lingering whispers deepen as the wavy crests

Roll with weird rhythm, now gay, now gently grave;

And floods of lambent light appear the sea to pave-

All cast a spell that heeds not time‘s behests.

Not always such the scene; the din of fight

Has swelled the murmur of the peaceful air;

Here East and West have oft displayed their might;

Dark battle clouds have dimmed this scene so fair;

Here bold Olympia, one historic night,

Presaging freedom, claimed a people‘s care.

 Pedagogic
by Cirilo Bautista

I walked towards the falling woods

to teach the trees all that I could

of time and birth, the language of men,

the virtues of hate and loving.

They stood with their fingers flaming,

Listened to me with a serious mien:

I knew the footnotes, all the text,

my words were precise and correct—

I was sure that they were learning—

till one tree spoke, speaking in dolor,
to ask why I never changed color.
 A Definition of God
Rafael Ingles

My God fills the gap in the ugliness of the human face:

This God searches, and makes His home not in places
Pure and holy, but in isolated caves where
Forlorn sinners have found iniquity a fickle master.

He comes uninvited -
Man’s craftiness He matches with candor;
Man’s earthly passion He matches with the benign
Glow of onmipresence. When I am most good
He can not be found for He and I lose
Our identity. How else can the human face
Assume the perfect configuration?

My God moves in when all else have fled:

Like the wind, He stirs wilted leaves to life and makes
The plant more vibrant. He suffuses desolate landscapes
With the barely perceptible warmth that shuns
The stunted body to find haven in the mind.

Yet His too is the willingnness of the Universe.

His power is unobtrusive till He seems no farther from
Myself than me, no farther from yourself than you –
Where I discover my faults, there He is
Waiting to make amends.

God is as human as economics or mathematics. He

Is supply and demand, or the algebraic equation which
In the final analysis is naught equals naught.
Within the geometry of love, my God reigns;
Where the spheroid whirls He is the vortex
Without beginning, without end.

My God worships me not merely

At times of peace nor in the exclusive ways
Of the church. My God worships
Me, or else He would not have conceived
Himself to atone for my imperfect self;
He comes uninvited, He is everywhere -
Making amends, making amends.
 A Man From the Slums
Contemplates His Church
Danton S. Remoto

The lot is larger

than the corner
I live in.

The baroque doors

are thicker
than my plywood walls.

The candles
burn
before the frozen saints.

Darkness
gutters
in my house.

The chandeliers
gleam
like tears

and the windows

glow with colors
that will never warm

my hut
where the windows
have lids of sorrow.