Papa's Post: Beyond Baras, beside the bay
I
Atop a bamboo bordered hill
Where sun-browned sparrows sung all day
Where wind and rain came cool and clean
Beyond Baras, beside the Bay,
The cogon grass once covered all.
And there was naught but nature's peace
Until one dusty day in May
When men, all clad in combat green,
Came up the virgin hill to stay
Where once the cogon covered all.
They raised their flag and built their camp
Of nipa huts in neat array
They cleared and burned the cogon grass
That hampered both their work and play;
The grass that once covered all.
The sound of men and war machines
The cry of life, the sighs of still-
Unspoken hopes, the grief of death
Then sounded, echoed on the hill
Where once the cogon covered all.
But that was long, so long ago
Upon that hill now naught is seen
But one decaying broken pole
(The flagpole once, of the men in green)
And cogon creeping over all
Atop that bamboo hill
Where sun-browned sparrows sing all day
The wind and rain come cool and clean
Beyond Baras, beside the Bay,
Again, the cogon covers all.
II
But though the cogon covers all
Beyond the pain this poem draws
Your birthday shows that "love remained"
For you are here, my child because
Once, long ago, we loved and lived
(I and my bride of the fourth of May)
Atop a bamboo bordered hill
Where sun-browned sparrows sung all day
Where wind and rain came cool and clean
Beyond Baras, beside the bay.
7 feb 1961
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