The March of Death By Bienvenido N. Santos

The March of Death
By Bienvenido N. Santos

Were you one of them, my brother
Whom they marched under the April sun
And flogged to bleeding along the roads we knew and loved?

March, my brother, march!
The springs are clear beyond the road
There is rest at the foot of the hill.

We were young together,
So very young and unafraid;
Walked those roads, dusty in the summer sun,
Brown pools and mud in the December rains;
We ran barefoot along the beaten tracks in the canefields
Planted corn after the harvest months.

Here, too, we fought and loved
Shared our dreams of a better place
Beyond those winding trails.

March, my brother march!
The springs are clear beyond the road
There is rest at the foot of the hill.

We knew those roads by heart
Told places in the dark
By the fragrance of garden hedge
In front of uncle’s house;
The clatter of wooden shoes on the bamboo bridge,
The peculiar rustling of bamboo groves
Beside the house where Celia lived.

Did you look through the blood in your eyes
For Celia sitting by the window,
As thousands upon thousands of you
Walked and died on the burning road?

If you died among the hundreds by the roadside
It should have been by the bamboo groves
With the peculiar rustling in the midnight.

No, you have not died; you cannot die;
I have felt your prayer touch my heart
As I walked along the crowded streets of America.

And we would walk those roads again one April morn,
Listen to the sound of working men
Dragging tree trunks from the forests,
Rebuilding homes- laughing again-
Sowing the field with grain, fearless of death
From cloudless skies.

You would be silent, remembering
The many young bodies that lay mangled by the roadside;
The agony and the moaning and the silent tears,
The grin of yellow men, their bloodstained blades opaque in the sun;

I would be silent, too, having nothing to say.
What matters if the winters were bitter cold
And loneliness stalked my footsteps on the snow?

March, my brother, march!
The springs are clear beyond the road
Rest, at the foot of the hill.

And we would walk those roads again on April morn
Hand in hand like pilgrims marching
Towards the church on the hillside,
Only a little nipa house beside the bamboo groves
With the peculiar rustling in the midnight
Or maybe I would walk them yet,
Remembering... remembering