Pagat revisited

I visited Pagat with a friend several weeks ago.

I meant to post something whimsical and cutting -- about the hallowed ground strewn with beer cans and coolers, and the experience of dragging a body (literally a pair of old pants and shirt stuffed with garbage) up a tree-lined path in the fading evening light.

But somewhere along the line I got distracted, and never got around to posting it.

And now, weeks later, it's all sort of fuzzy, so the best I can do is a prosaic summary:

I visited the village for the first time, and went beyond to the coral cliff line where green fields of moss and vines had sprung up on rocks. I sat in extended silence with my friend -- the well-prepared sailor -- and looked down at the blue ocean swirling through a cliffside crevice.

Navigating the dark black interior of the cold cave was more and less scary this time around. Less nerve-wracking because I knew what I was getting myself into, but more unsettling for the repeated faint knocking that was definitely not an abandoned beer can gently hitting the side of the cave wall.

And I heard singing in the forest as I played with the water collecting in the hollow of ancient dug-out grinding stones.

At first I thought someone was with us in the forest, doing some kind of latter-day Chamorro ritual. But after a while I realized we were alone. My friend couldn't hear the singing, only the sound of traffic at the nearby raceway.

But I could hear the sound of a woman's voice, faintly, singing something I didn't recognize.

It was odd. And then again -- not so odd.