The Yellow Camellia

"I used to stop for a long time in front of the tiger's cage to see him pacing back and forth. I liked his natural beauty, his black stripes and his golden stripes. And now that I am blind, one single color remains for me, and it is precisely the color of the tiger, the color yellow."
-Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

At the despot's carnage when
Two hundred thousand wronged
By more than a million errors of the same wrong
Spread like a tattered carpet,
A tattered carpet chanting the same song,
"Democracy, democracy!"
Bursting out from hearts who ne'er forget
That man is born to be bred free,
Pouncing back and forth the lion's paws,
Scarred the flag with fraud and enmity;
A score of years of tooth and claw
Inured the hearts of populi,
Blaring prayers wrought for God
To send the seeds in His molested land,
That called to arms our haggard faith
And summoned forth a time of peace;
And lo! He let sprout a yellow camellia.

A yellow camellia
Whose only leaf had fallen off;
But leafless though she spread her arms,
Welcoming those stripped of freedom;
Snatched by debt, in sorry state;
A nation of uncertain destiny;
Left by Fortune, cursed by Fate;
She stood for people's sovereignty
Straight before the tyrant's eyes,
Who soon staggered, flinched and fled
From a sea of yellow camellias
At the avenue where the thousands wept;
Oh Mother Camellia, this is not an elegy,
For though you may have stopped breathing,
Your seeds and dreams do live in me.

2 August 2009
Gapan City