Temple Tunes
(Philippines)
My pencil was tapping today,
a beat I didn’t recognize at first—
until Manila appeared,
bursting with church bells and jeepney horns.
It raced across the page,
drawing the old stone walls of Intramuros,
where every arch seemed to echo a song.
Then it curved and leapt—
a jeepney appeared,
painted with colors the rainbow had forgotten to keep.
The pencil paused and whispered a secret:
there’s a bamboo organ here,
in Las Piñas—
the only one in the world still singing after 200 years.
I smiled and drew its pipes as slender stems,
each one swaying in invisible wind.
By the time I signed my name,
the city was humming.
Church bells, jeepneys, and pencil strokes—
all keeping time with my heart.
✨ If your pencil could make music, what would it sound like?