Notes To Josefino Zabala, Ex-future Nationalist Writer*

*the whole poem is included in the blogger's anthology of English-Ilokano poems, "Umayka Manen, Ganggannaet/Come Again, Stranger"




1.

Aristocratic fingers
Neither walk the yellow pages
     Of history.
Nor do they feel the pulse
Of the now-barren country
Whose impatient offsprings
Have gone away, lost
.....
,,,,
---
And the longing knows no end:
Who will miss the cool hills
     Of Sagada and Samoki?

2.

,,,,
Pinned against our cheek.

3.

The last stanza consists of 19 lines
,,,,
...
Tat end with:

By the tongues of fire-throwers
     And the politicians