What did I go out to see? The mountains awakened to a red sky? Warriors on a tribal warpath, All frenzied up in feathers And royal loin cloths, Their spears and head-axes Threatening to split the sun?   What did I go out to see? Igorot headhunters murdering Each other, their village peace pacts Bloodied and disgraced, and all Because the old men relay songs That chain them to debilitating Customs and beliefs of tradition,   While fatted landlords, compradores, And sycophant state bureaucrats Wait to grab more ancestral lands And to open the floodgates On the terraces of food grains, While mercenary troopers stand Ready to kill and rob and rape?   What did I go out to see? Helpless peasants of an old order Searching for truth in wine jars Or in the entrails of fowls and pigs, Mourning the death of ancient mores And stories of Bugan and Wigan, Now cold as the rock of the gods?   I have seen the arm bands of ivory, Raiments red and gold, beads of agate. I have seen armed propaganda units work, Patiently and skillfully puncturing Illusions, and creating images That release peasants from space to time In the resumed revolution.   One day a village celebrated, Feasted on three carabaos. I saw the menfolk pick up the gongs To dance the dance of the birds Of a newfound freedom. I saw too The maidens break the male circle To dance themselves, proudly in step.   Truly is the circle broken now That amazons have entered the warrior Class. Worthy and capable is woman To bear arms against the class enemies Of an oppressed and exploited people. She who works the rice fields, She who gives life must defend life.   And one mountain morning I saw A new breed of warriors Held in parade by a fallow payao, And proud as greening rice stalks In the wind. The Gran Cordillera Has birthed a platoon, an armed Militia unit in the new sunlight!   The children watched in awe As the militia executed drills. The old men approved the smartness Of their warriors of a new type, Their reflexes well-groomed and tested, Minds honed in ideological struggles, Hearts remolded in service to people.   Fewer now are tribal conflicts. New pacts are decided that protect Against the intrusions of the ruling Classes. The dictatorship wonders Why the people no longer quarrel And brandish shields and spears. There are new lyrics to old chants.   History is bent here, Is lifted to new and greater heights At the fulcrum of the broad masses Forged by the proletarian party. The hunter allows the steady hawk Its freedom now that he knows That he too is on the wing.   And what did I go out to see? A mother watched her son in the militia, Her baby slung asleep in his oban. I thought I caught the sun in a tear, Of joy, perhaps, Or perhaps not, In one turning point in old mountains.