Filipino Poet, Writer and Educator
By Luis G. Dato The rollo or cursillo, what is it?For answer, tax the mind, the soul a bit,Make room for error and allow surprise,The answer (you have guessed it) elsewhere lies. Cursillos are retreats but more than these.They’re more…
by Luis G. Dato I. MONS. JORGE BARLIN Monseigneur Barlin, the ages do not die But leave behind their monuments of glory, God-blessed and crowned with immortality, They mark the epochs of a nation’s story. And such was you, your…
by Luis G. Dato “In the beginning was the word, And the Word was with God, And the Word was God” — St. John Belief in God, of all creation Lord, Whence life, the cosmos issued from God’s word Is…
by Luis Dato O Christ! it cannot that You will stand With hand uplifted to a warring world Fore’er unheeding, battle flags unfurled In ceaseless combat deaf to Your command. It cannot be that with Your Cross in hand The…
by Luis G. Dato “Daily, with souls that cringe and plot, We Sinai climb and know it not.” — James Russel Lowell These gnarled trees that have stood for many a year, Of God they seem to whisper to our…
by Luis Dato By nearest chance, one day, I stood before An altar by the meeting of the ways, My young heart, heavy, sighting as of yours, Filled with the nausea of the present days; How long ago, and how…
by Luis G. Dato He passed me by all heedless many times, At all odd moments, or when sharp chimes My bells would call the woshippers at dawn, The dews still fresh and glistening on the lawn, The east a…
by Luis G. Dato O God, I hear it said that You are dead, Lived ne’er below or out in space o’erhead, That Hell or Heaven, extent if at all, Are just in us, no Doomsday and no Fall. But…
by Luis G. Dato Ride, ride the highways of the world away, And back again, with hearts that throb with life, Your grails seek out in the light of farthest day, In that consists the world’s incessant strife. Blue hills…
(Sonnet attributed to St. Francis Xavier) by Luis G. Dato It does not move me, Lord, Thyself to love, This after Heaven thou has promised me, Nor fires of Hell that burn eternally, To cease offending thee my spirit move.…
by Luis G. Dato When in the rush for fortune and for fame, For man’s applause that will not long abide, I stifle soul and conscience lay aside, The better thus to fight unarmed with shame; When to the refuge…
by Luis G. Dato Upon the alleys of the life I led, No Cross weighed body down, No Pilate brought upon my head A briar crown. The terror of some unlit Golgotha Loomed not for my alarm, Inhostile crowds my…
