Ode to Ka Parts

Beloved Artist of the People
Slain by Government Troops in Polomolok, South Cotabato,
on the 16th of August 2021
With only pen and ink to defend himself

We never knew a man so deeply faithful
to his art
as he was to the revolution.
From his hands things came alive
As he captured them on paper, on sand, on petals,
On our very skin — an honest record of the
moveable life we live and
of our boundless responsibilities.
You sketched us – imperfect and perfect
And we came to see things as they were,
Or as they could be — rifles, nipa huts, seedlings,
Feet steeled in the long walk,
Warriors and comrades,
The warm smile of peasants,
Eyes that glint with love and hope,
All things still and moving and
The inexhaustible image of this —
This great guerilla war so we could
Erase all wars and build
The latent goodness and
Compassion of this world.

We never knew a man so intensely faithful
to the revolution,
as he was to his art.
And there he was, seated on a stone,
Or patiently poised in an attack
Against the marauders of the land
Translating action into paper —
Sketching the world as he understood it
Never stopping, never flinching.
And from his art we learned the texture of things,
The intertwining roots of the mountains,
The narratives of our commitment.
It was the most beautiful painting yet,
The anatomy of this great undertaking —
Perfect cadence of warriors and peasants
in a communion of dreams.

Parts, dearest Parts —
Beloved artist and devoted son of the People’s War,
The enemy’s bullet can never erase you
It cannot delete the vision you’ve lived for
So dearly etched in our lives
Framed in our hearts, and
In the veins and arteries of our struggle.

You live, you will always live, Ka Parts.

With all the love and respect,
Ka Joven Obrero