LORDS OF THE SWORD

In commemoration of my PMA Class 1955's 55th or Emerald Anniversary, I composed the following poem:

THE LORDS OF THE SWORD

During the Spring Equinox of 1955
When the night was as long as the day
Fifty three young men left monastic P.M.A.
To be Lords of the Sword of the country.

Most of them led men to fight on the ground,
Some to guard the sky, some to protect the sea,
And some to carry out the laws of the land,
These Lords of the Sword all fifty and three.

They relentlessly sought and resolutely fought
The enemy in the jungles and in the mountains,
And brought a halt to a revolt down south of the country.
These Lords of the Sword all fifty and three.

Some found time to write but mostly to fight,
Others found time to fight but mostly to write
About policy, about authority, about integrity
These Lords of the Sword these fifty and three.

Some Lords of the Sword, titled with degrees
Were brought together as wizards of the realm
To pioneer and set up advanced technologies
To modernize an ambitious regime.

Then in Nineteen Eighty Six, on EDSA One,
The Lords of the Sword, heeding a raging clamor,
Helped change a regime and cast out a dictator
Not in hatred or vengeance but for love of democracy.

Matched with Ladies filled with divine femininity
They brought up children to continue the striving
For justice, for peace and for moral prosperity
Some Lords of the Sword left of fifty and three.

After thirty or so years they left the military
Some labored overseas, some joined Industry,
One strove to change a poor town to a rich city,
Some spread the Words of the Lord on Eternity.

In their Year of the Emerald in two thousand and ten
Of the fifty and three still lived twenty and seven,
Thrice the sacred nine, the three Enneads of wisdom,
Await a wonderful Life promised beyond Time.