The Bronze Dove

1. Benigno Aquino Jr. International Airport

The adobe-brown terminal looms

like a sleeping carabao caked with mud—

you come up with fifty words to describe

the different shades of green you saw

rushing up from the ground,

you scratch your neck, feel the grime and sweat

from San Francisco or L.A. on your nape,

you look out your window seat

search for a plaque or a stain of blood—

this is the tarmac where he was shot.

(For a better view, go to Ayala Avenue in Makati.

In front of the Bank of the Philippine Islands

and the Insular Life Building is the statue

with the stairs and the dove on his shoulder.

While you're there, look

for the statues of Lapu Lapu and Tandang Sora

among the Ipil-ipil trees on Makati Avenue.)

You pass through a fluorescent-white curtain

of warm air as you descend

into the unloading tube—

a smile from an airline attendant,

the long walk to the Immigration booth,

Balikbayan sir? Welcome home.

a stamp for six months on your U.S. passport,

another ten dollar bill between its pages

for the Customs people up ahead,

Balikbayan? Do you have anything to declare,

pasalubong, expensive gifts

for the relatives? Thank you sir!

a porter in a red shirt takes your luggage

to the street level, asks for five dollars,

the faces of a hundred people pressed

behind a bamboo fence stare

as you board a Golden or Metro taxi cab.

You inhale the humid air, sweat is now

running down your face.

2. E. de los Santos Avenue

The Jeepnies are engorged with eight

or ten passengers, each jeepney

speeding and stopping with their fiesta

of sounds, of colors, the bodies inside

breathing carbon monoxide.

You take the overpass into Makati—

to the right is the long tan wall topped

with barbed-wire hiding the luxury homes

of Dasmarinas Village, to the left

is San Lorenzo Village where you'll find

the San Lorenzo Pre-school.

Go to the house in Zulueta Circle,

this is where the poet

of Like The Molave once lived.

His widow's name is Cora.

On the corner of Edsa and Buendia,

among the street vendors selling

copies of Woman's Day, Manila Bulletin,

or Marlboro and Winston cigarettes,

you might see a girl without a left arm tapping

on windows of stopped cars pointing

to her mouth, asking for money.

Every other year, before the monsoon rains,

it's the same arm that's cut off

just above the elbow, a different

young face running up to cars

in the same intersection.

3. Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo

You pass Camp Crame where Ninoy Aquino,

Jose Maria Sison, the poet Mila D. Aguilar,

and countless others were "detained"

under Marcos. The positive wire

attached to the penis, the negative

to the scrotum. This is also the place

where more than a million people

said "no" to the Dictator. You may still

hear stories about the tear gas,

the armored personnel vehicles,

the ordinary people who would not

move out of the way. They say

that for three days the electricity

to the whole city was turned off

but the people still fought for freedom,

sang songs to each other around bonfires,

made love by candle light.

Copyright Credit: Nick Carbo, "The Bronze Dove" from Secret Asian Man. Copyright © 1995 by Nick Carbo. Reprinted by permission of Nick Carbo.

Source: Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation (University of Illinois Press, 2004)