xwingweaverx

Away of Coming Home

By Alfred Navarro Salanga

I think the end came
With his one foot
Raised in air-poised
Like an inverted
Benediction
He was stepping down-
Isn't that how one goes
Into a country from the air?
Hawks and eagles, they too,
Land on their feet. But nothing,
nothing was to come out of this,
Neither blessing nor returning.
As sun touch his crown
It knew. Another door had 
opened
To welcome him neither
As a priest
nor as bird.

The first time I read this poem, the first thing I thought of was dying or death. It never occurred to me that this was actually an allusion to Ninoy Aquino’s assassination 29 years ago on the 21^st of August. I realized it when our professor gave this to us as an assignment and hinted that it was about Ninoy Aquino.

The first line, “With his one foot, Raised in air-poised, Like an inverted, Benediction” describes Ninoy leaving his plane. The word benediction in the line refers to the Apostolic Benediction which is always given to a sick person before death. This served, in a way as a hint of Ninoy’s fate. Another way to see this is imagining Ninoy dead and falling off the plane. The line “Like an inverted, Benediction” refers to priests finally taking their oath as they lay prostate in front of a cross. Like an inverted cross.

The second line, “He was stepping down-Isn't that how one goes, into a country from the air? Hawks and eagles, they too, Land on their feet” describes Ninoy walking down the air stair, he lands on his feet just like all birds do. The hawk and the eagle also represents something else, the hawk is known to be a messenger and the eagle a symbol of freedom. With these two in the same stanza it describes that Ninoy is a Messenger of Freedom.

In the next line, “But nothing, nothing was to come out of this, neither blessing nor returning. As sun touch his crown. It knew.” I had a bit of difficulty here because I couldn’t pin what the sun and crown symbolize. I couldn’t connect it to Ninoy. But I remembered that Ninoy was warned not to come back because his life would be in danger. So he when he returned to the Philippines, he was aware of the danger and threat to his life.

At the end of the poem the line, “to welcome him neither, as a priest nor as bird.”  This is the part where it is hinted that Ninoy had already died and that the Lord or whatever higher being is ready to welcome him. Furthermore, the priest, in ancient times is seen as a representative of either a god or a government while the bird is often associated with freedom. This implies that Ninoy was a Representative of Freedom but this did not matter to the Lord. When Ninoy died, his political position, background, wealth and whatever he possessed when he was alive did not matter because death isn’t that picky of whom it wants to take.