"On All Saints' Day"

"On All Saints Day"
Emilio Mar. Antonio
Published in Parnasong Tagalog, an anthology of Philippine poems, 1949.
Translated by Victor Ancheta, 2012.


The jealous sparkle of the star
appea

rs-and-hides in the heaping darkness;
timidly looking at the garish grave
that brightly glitters!
(Oh, proud light, guard of darkness,
should you make sorrow beautiful? )

The lonely grave, ornamented,
who hangs a crown of flowers on the cross?
Cross that warns of sadness,
to whom do flowers give delight?
Would a rotten life
be awakened by whimpers?

The few candles on the grave of oppression,
their rays pale by midnight;
with flickering lights abreast,
the lighted flames glint.
A crestfallen heart, in pain accustomed,
is burdened by the carried phantom of grief!

Oh, Grave heaped with sighs,
of holy language and of soul...
is it saintly to refuse
the offered crown in death?
(Oh, I take it to heart to see on others
a burial so abject as of my beloved father!)

But oh father, on All Saints' Day,
there is an Almighty that sifts and weighs;
the arrogant gold placed on the cadaver,
too heavy to lift up to the skies...
While the wilted flower of grief,
if brought to heaven is weightless!

It is not in an elegant and bedecked grave,
that salvation is attained;
fortunate is the mocked and maltreated earth,
for the glory is up above;
the rays of the star that shimmers,
bring the purest glimmer!

Let others pretend
that their lights are the luster of gold;
(Truly on earth
is pride always cherished, even in grief!
Your guarded candle, bowed and timid,
is a low, resentful light!