I’m calling this photo “Eyes on Carabao Park.” I took this yesterday late afternoon while walking back home after a semi-wet quick walk. About two days ago, I went home soaked in rain after staying out too late. I don’t want that to happen again, so I started my wait out of the campus when it started raining and the drops are not yet that big. Rains here in Los Baños are starting to come with strong winds, making any sort of walk difficult. I had to stop to take a photo of those orange lights though. I notice that whoever opens these lights opens them fairly early. What a waste of energy, I thought. But those orange bulbs do look like the eyes—like of an engkanto, perhaps a kapre, looking down from the large tree on the background. Oh my, these rains water the imagination!


I walk out the door and immediately feel the heat sting. A huge rain cloud is forming in the southwest, but the rest of the sky is azure.

At Carabao Park, I look up at the trees, and they all feel strange to me. I am in awe, and yet I know none of them. Is this what the ancient animists felt as they bowed beneath these giants?