From chapel to chapel
From church to church
From across the street
Within the Mall, downtown
The merger of religion with business
The encounter of faith with purpose
The family and children in leisure erase
A culture unique in its depth
Of the manifestation of the spiritual
As simple gestures unveil
A gaze, a request, a blessing touch
Human connections that overcome
Resistance and a different outcome
The high-rise buildings coexist
With crowded quarters that insist
That hardened hearts of the impatient
Administrators have thought – what might
Help many on the vanguard of transformation
Working at cross purposes and in unison
To do a dent and leave a mark unseen
In alleviating the disparity between
The Haves and the Nots in and out of church
One would for those in than out wish much
That things were easier and navigable more
The highroads of standards international
Coexist with a public transportation traditional
That has a character that mitigates
One example of the rough edges
Smoothened even as education does
Something similar to making the two Sides
Rather than conflict, merge and coalesce
Two economies seem rampant in one religion
Across ages, cultures and faith affiliations
Equality and the rights of all – melt peoples
Somewhere into the ground realities
Of disparities between divergences
Despite similar languages and ethnicities
This location four score years ago
A peripheral district of the city goers
Eventually turns with the life over
Education provided many an opportunity
The Salesians drew with fun and familiarity
Business and Commerce, enterprise
Housing and activities for leisure time
Making it the hub of a new city
Located down the road – Makati
It’s the downtown centre with Malls now
With Chapels, cross on the stations of the way
Lent and penitence, abstinence, prayer
Hand in hand with all ways to make it ever
Better, easier, harder, tougher,
And ever more in quest beautifully
With parts of the city sleeping fitfully
Some, at least, yearning yet earnestly
The welfare of the best for all equally