~ after "Pag-ahon" by Elmer Borlongan, 2011
Don’t look for a simple treatise on triumph, here.
These figures pull the weight they’ve been given—
see how it sits, not flimsy like an outrigger,
but weighted as a bulwark is weighted.
Nothing is soft underfoot. Water,
the color and texture of beaten metal.
Overhead, the sky is enigmatic: amalgam
pressing down on each flank of the horizon.
The energy on one side is repeated on the other.
Right and left are two halves of a similar purpose.
If there were noise, one of them makes it
by roaring into the wind. Their bodies, burnished
from years of striving. Years of work make
the task almost possible. Everyone else bends
forward, trying to keep the star in the center
of their bellies from falling into the sea.
*Pag-ahon (pag-Á-hon), Tagalog or Filipino for
rising/the act of rising; recovery, overcoming