by Almira Astudillo Gilles
In the Philippines, we have an All Souls Day tradition of going to the cemetery and keeping vigil. As is customary with any prolonged Filipino activity, having food sufficient for the length of the visit is of primary concern, so we bring “baon.”
Feast of All Souls
We visit our beloved departed
in the cemetery
haggling with the young boy
selling candles at the gate.
He knows how much we love
our dead.
The souls wait for us
impatient between the tombstones
ready to chastise about
neglected promises
heirlooms discarded.
Calvary Cemetery in Evanston, photo by Almira Astudillo Gilles
With a twinge of regret, we recall
insults hurled in anger
or a grace withheld.
Have we said enough prayers
to get them out of purgatory?
But we don’t dwell too long on these; our food is getting cold.
We unpack our baon
and reminisce
that right before Tony died
he ate seafood
or that Ella liked adobo
with coconut milk.
And while we spend the day
with people left behind
the souls sit on their tombstones
watching us
as we light white candles,
murmur fervent prayers,
bury old regrets.
Almira Astudillo Gilles (almiragilles@gmail.com) describes her heart’s work as conservation in two areas: indigenous cultural heritage and natural resources. Her cultural heritage work includes a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation grant for Art and Anthropology Project: Portrait of the Object as Filipino, an international artist exchange. She was the founder of 10,000 Kwentos (“Stories”) at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, a model of direct community engagement with the museum’s Philippine ethnographic collection.
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