Author: Luisa A. Igloria

In a dream, two of my daughters sit in a box
frame house the size of a sky lantern. They are going
to bring a plate of purple figs to God, freshly picked 
yesterday and cold from the refrigerator. I hold
the bottom steady, waiting for the lit birthday candles
to fuel the paper envelope surrounding them 
and the moment of lift-off. I want to be useful.
I want them to succeed. I want them to soar
through the night sky holding hands but unafraid.
I want to watch the marvel of their progress, 
a gold thread steadily stitching the blue. There
they go, floating with every good wish in
the wind. I don't mind the cold in these dark
hills, nor the crows full of bluster in the trees.

For all the times I believe better
to ask forgiveness instead of permission.

For the times I break the quiet,
and all the times I refuse to speak.

For plucking fruit still jacketed in green
just to cut it open and prove it has a heart.

For pressing my eager hand on the glass 
and lifting the ropes, despite the warnings.

For all the times I mean no but 
my mouth, this body, says yes or maybe.

For thinking the world is always willing to help, 
rather than lying in wait as an orange sunrise.

For the hours I let grief eat from my hand
and the nights I pray for sleep so when I wake

everything stretched to near breaking 
will return to its unbroken self. 

*

P.S.: I woke up to this beautiful translation into Ilocano 
of my poem, by Baguio-based poet, scholar, translator 
and artist Junley Lorenzana Lazaga. I have his permission 
to share it here on Via Negativa. Agyamanac unay, Junley!

Daniw kas Pammakawan iti Uniberso
(Poem as Apology to Universe by Luisa A. Igloria;
translated by Junley Lorenzana Lazaga)


Para kadagiti amin a panawen nga ad-adda nga italekko 
ti kumiddaw iti pammakawan imbes a pammalubos. 

Para kadagiti amin a kanito a ti talna, binurakko,
ken amin a kanito a nagkedkedak nga agsao. 

Para iti panangpuros iti bunga a naganus pay laeng a silalangto
tapno laeng iwaek a luktan ken paneknekan nga addaan iti puso.

Para iti panangigaedko iti imak iti sarming
ken panangitag-ay kadagiti galut, iti laksid dagiti ballaag.

Para kadagiti amin nga oras a kayatko a sawen ti saan
ngem dagiti bibigko, daytoy bagik, nangbalikas iti wen wenno amangan. 

Para iti panangpanunot a ti lubong ket kanayon a sisasagana a tumulong,
imbes nga agtalinaed laeng nga agur-uray a kas iti maris-kahel nga ileleggak ti init. 

Para kadagiti oras a ti leddaang, isubbuak a mangan 
ken kadagiti rabii nga agkararagak para iti pannaturog tapno iti iririingko

amin a mabinnat nga agarup maburak
ket agsublida iti bagida a di-naburak.


Prof. Junley Lorenzana Lazaga, holds the distinction of being 
the first in the University of the Philippines Baguio to be conferred 
the title of UP Artist. He currently serves as an associate professor 
in the Department of Language, Literature, and the Arts, where he 
has served for over fifteen years in various academic and administrative 
leadership roles,  including directing public affairs during the height 
of the COVID-19 pandemic. He writes in Ilokano, Filipino, and English, 
and also translates between these languages. He is the recipient 
of a UP Baguio Golden Jubilee Award (2021), One UP Faculty Grant 
Award (2016-2018, 2019-2021), and One UP Professorial Chair 
Award (2022-2024).
 

the uncanny distribution of quakes 
all over the globe,  some deadlier than
others— Did the tortoise in the center 
of the earth finally tire of shouldering 
our burdens and maybe step away from 
the pillar that holds everything in place? 
Yesterday, towers stood like gleaming 
sheaths beneath the broiling sun as though 
they would withstand  every form of violence. 
Yesterday, a sinkhole yawned open at the exit 
from the freeway. Days bare their teeth and 
gums. The wind smears pastes of insect
bodies on glass. I am trying not to think
of these as plagues pouring out of the sky.

the small graft that took, the barely green
patched into the rootstock of another. Or
whip and tongue, cleft together. Meaning,
a wound is made to shorten the time 
it takes to fruit or flower.  Virgil wrote 
of where the buds push forth amidst 
the bark, and burst the membranes  
thin, but we only talk about toughening 
the skin. Legends say the dimpled fruit,
bruised by a forest fairy's fingers, turned
from bitter to syrup in the mouth. Every
change adds another layer. How fortunate
we are to pick and choose what to leave
behind, what to make part of our insides.

the exhaustion. The drooping in armchairs
at 1 PM.  The restless tossing in bed through 
the night, the laggardly rising in the morning.
Dreams kaleidoscope into a language needing
urgent translation. Outside, in the garden,
birds bicker over a breakfast of shreds.
Does it matter? All next week, plumes of dust 
will move from the Sahara into our airspace.
Particulates may trigger asthma or allergies,
but also exceptional sunsets. Every known fact
delivers us faster to ourselves and our famously
vulnerable nature.  But so does everything we 
hold in ignorance, in abeyance. Come, lift that
pallid shawl. Let's raise a glass to the unknown.

the idea of endless reinvention. Put on a ruffled
collar and hose in the morning, then at noon 
rip that costume off. By evening, shack up
with yourself in a citadel of your own choosing 
and decide you've had it with public life. The forms
of one's solitude are always works in progress.
Which is why you try. You can only try. Life, as anyone
can confirm, is a noose only as tight or as comfortable 
as you make it. Its other name is obsession. The scientist
walked through the cold streets at night back to the lab.
With the lamps unlit, she saw shelves of gleaming beakers,
particles unearthed from pitchblende. The hems 
of her skirts were lined with them. The pages of her
notebooks. A lifetime of following the trail they made.

the heat. You can always blame the heat. Or
algae in the water. The finger that the crook
may or may not have touched to the surface
of the soup. The low quality of the paint. Or
the adhesive. Or the impatience of the crew
tasked to make everything work just so. It was
the early self-congratulation. Followed by this
cascade of blame. It was the rockets in the sky,
the heat signals they sought, the silence of crickets
in the field.  Every day it was going to be the end. 
Or just another version of the end. The sun went 
to our heads until our heads exploded. It was a pool 
that mirrored nothing but dross. Not even the relief 
of a dagger buried in its poisoned heart.  

the given, the background to our nature. Born/

with all our grief/ already in us, like teeth. But teeth,

when they give you trouble—you go to the dentist.

Sit in the chair, open your mouth, submit to the sickle 

probe and the scaler, the drill and suction device. Grief 

lodges somewhere deeper than the gum, deeper than 

a root canal procedure could numb then clean out 

the damaged interior. The very young new dentist 

is astonished. She says, You have quite a lot of dental work, 

the same way one might say Do you not brush your teeth, 

don't you have insurance? And you wonder if grief and pain 

have somehow been miraculously eradicated while you 

slept. You do—you do the hygiene, the irrigation, even

knowing all this was there before you even started.






~ after Kevin Young, "Underworld (Circle Three),"
Night Watch

a parade of ships, passing yearly through Thimble 
Shoals and the Chesapeake, into the downtown 
harbor. It was the unfurled romance of barques, 
wooden-hulled sloops and schooners— the Gloria, 
Vela,  Esmeralda, Oosterschelde. When and If, Patton’s
dream to sail around the world when the war was over, 
and if he lived through it. A solemn choir of brown 
pelicans watches from the docks, their own six-
foot sails folded. In the 1500s, Magellan's fleet 
took a year and a half to reach the Philippines 
from Spain. Container ships from Shanghai arrive 
at the port terminal in just over a month. The pelican
dives from 60 feet in the air to spear a fish. It tilts
its head a little sideways, then swallows it whole. 

all I ate, in a fever—the world
and its salt cracklings, a world 
of bitter aftertastes washed down 
with weak dispatches about how all 
shall be well. Oh, don't mistake my 
sadness for a hardness of heart. 
On the contrary, I am constantly 
accused of having been too trusting,
too soft rather than steely in resolve.
Thus have I been made to hang my head 
in shame, though I paw at the rocky ground
with my hooves to signify that even then, I 
didn't, don't, give all of myself up. Inside, 
there's a room where I refuse to be pummeled.