My Old Hometown Poem by Efren Petalver Carranza

Long before it became a city-like,
The chirps of the crickets at night,
And the crows of the roosters at dawn,
Sunrise, mid-sun, sunset,
Is how we told time
In this place now I call it
My old hometown
So before sunrise melts the morning mists,
‘Till it sets across the mountains,
We farmed as hard as we could,
But no matter how poor life is,
This place was my paradise.
Like the crowns of acacia and tamarind trees
And the arcs of bamboo poles
That looks like a tunnel to the south
Made this place enchanting to my memories,
Down by the valley onward to the northwest,
Along the cradle of its crystal lake,
With choir of birds and scents of ilang-ilang,
There! It remained the life of my childhood.

Banog Norte is a small barrio of Bani in the province of Pangasinan, Philippines. Now, I also call it ‘the corner-end part of the world’ simply because it lies onto the very western tip of Central Luzon.
Amid the rice field, where our small house made of cogon roof, bamboo walls, and bamboo floors, I was born [here] not knowing how mother looked like. Thereby, the chirps of the crickets at night were my lullabies.
During my childhood, there was nothing more I enjoyed than getting soaked in the carabaos’ puddle or ride on their back elsewhere. Swimming was beyond my playful interest; thus, the choir of birds, who sang to the river, and the scents of rice straws in me have all captured in my solitude.