Alexandra Paula M.

Cayme
Grade-12 Arrupe B
Annotation

“What the sleeping lady dreamed of shimmered on the surface of Lake Lanao, a mirror of her blur
calm or troubled grey”

- Dreamed of a gray, distressed sleeping lady. Could be a sign of impending lunacy or a bad thing
happening. His emotions are directly sent to Lake Lanao through the Persona, who acts as a mirror.
The Lake expresses his emotions

“In the Sacred Mountain, beyond Signal Hill, the fog tarried for a while, remembering a heady
night mystery and magic."

- The persona depicts the surroundings' unknowable unpredictability.

“Then the darkness lifted, as it always did for a thousand years, revealing a sunlit world.”

- a symbol of hope or an indication of hope. It may imply that there was hope obvious where the
individual resided. perhaps there was calm.

“Back then, before the Madness arrived and irrevocably altered everything, it was a good place.”

-the period before the terrible Marawi siege when all was quiet. a hint that "back then, it was a
good place. the Marawi 2017 siege may be what the persona meant by "madness."

“Open spaces moved out of the shadow: rolling hills, verdant valleys, endless skies, beef randang,
coffee.. chuchu… barge playing its ancient trade on the lake Tamparan.”

- There is a blatant use of hyperbole to indicate how much the persona adored their culture, from
the sentence "the faraway tingle of kumintang" to "the bangolo wharf to the southern...Tamparan."
The scenery of the holy place and the culture that predominated their land capture the persona.

-It demonstrated all Marawi had to offer, including the tranquility that ruled the region and its
vibrant culture.

Author’s Background

According to his biography, the author has lived in Marawi all of his life, hence he has firsthand
knowledge of the events the poem described. He might have lived through the conflict and was
remembering Marawi's earlier days. Furthermore, the poet might be honoring the battle dead in this
poem. What was once alive is now dead and could not be brought back, therefore it "changed
everything forever."