FORTY-THREE HEARTS

FORTY-THREE HEARTS

(In honor of the Morong 43)

-  Nonilon V. Queano/6November2010

(Translated by the author from his original poem in Filipino, “Apatnapu’t Tatlong Puso”)  FREE THE 43 NOW!

It takes no effort to understand that a crime doer

Needs be sent to prison.

No.

One would not mind being punished

If to repay what one owes,

Indeed, the heart would do penance

Happily to find peace afterwards.

But it was an occasion to serve and show love,

Forty-three hearts offering care:

Doctors, nurses, health workers, midwives

Coming to visit the less fortunate,

Bound by a mission to help,

Bringing medicines to the sick and needy.

Thus, when a batallion of soldiers attacked

And accused them falsely of being outlaws;

When they were taken and blindfolded,

Even the hut where the forty-three hearts rested

Stood aghast,

The wind gusts stopped,

And the whole land was in shock,

They could not fathom

Why they who healed and cared for the poor

Were handcuffed, taken and treated worse than criminals,

Abused gravely just short of being murdered with bullets

       by evil men.

The forty-three hearts would not have minded

(Two pregnant mothers even had to give birth in prison)

If the law on right and wrong had not been violated:

How it is that criminals celebrate,

While hearts that served the sick and  the poor

Are now punished.

It takes no effort for even the unschooled

To understand

When the people rise and fists go ablaze

To right the wrong and spread light,

Like a furnace fiercely exploding in bad weather

Or the unbroken tolling of bells when heaven grieves,

For the forty-three hearts that are true and pure,

We will carry the struggle until freedom is won.