I am aware that much of my poetry works with recurrent themes involving place (I am always writing about my hometown— Baguio, it seems), the complicated dynamics of family, the often tangled relationships between history, time, and memory. […]
At the same time, I am aware of the desire to make a clear and accessible connection to readers, whoever they might be, while remaining true to my heart’s first subjects and passions. The notion of a “universal audience” has about the same significance and importance to me as the arguably comparable notion of a “global citizen.” (That is to say, the construct of universality which posits that underneath all the indices of identity, history, gender, etc. which mark us, we are essentially all the same, might be useful in certain contexts, but also undeniably dangerous for its potential to conflate the details of our histories, which are singular.) But also, I cannot believe that what I write would have relevance only for an audience “just like me,” or that such an audience really and truly exists.
Uncomplicated
Two I called mother— one of them birthed me, two of them raised me. When I look around today, I realize it’s not as uncommon as I once thought.
But: two pairs of arms, two sets of fingers, two hearts, two histories, two lullabies, two tongues— how could it not be complicated?
One threw whole sticks of butter into the pots and mixing bowls: cake, spaghetti sauce, it didn’t matter.
One carefully quartered pieces of chicken, stripped tendon to bone, counting out meals and measuring cups of grain in advance.
One whipped egg whites to perfect foam, picked fish of guts and littered bone.
How many loves, how many heartbreaks, how many triumphs and regrets?
And is it any wonder that today, I prefer savory over sweet, unruliness of bramble, tumble and surprise of wild flowers?
No need to pass the salt and pepper for they have taught me the language of laurel, eucalyptus, ginger, star anise.
And I did not know then but now I do— Because this road is long, they’ve stamped their tinctures of herb and camphor on all the stations of my body; and their fragrant signatures on my brow and on my hands.
In response to Via Negativa: Mom at 36.
Thin fog, as in the corners of a tintype—
where a woman in a long skirt and a thin gauze panuelo poses against a plaster column
where two sisters gracefully incline their heads in opposite directions though the white soldier has his arms around their waists
where a narrow outrigger floats down a river not yet choked with plastic bottles and filth
where groups of women walk down a mountain trail balancing baskets of produce on their dark heads
where the mountains circle their strong dark arms with ink and scars
where these arms that pound the grain could also lift the sky
where a man is holding a scrap of paper he has picked up from a table, and try as I might,
I cannot decipher the message that might have been written there
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Fire-stealer
“‘Heaven’—is what I cannot reach!” ~ Emily Dickinson
How can we be happy again, someone asked; how can we ever feel safe. The girl with the striped headband said, We can. I want to hug all those children who survived and tell them, I just know everything will be all right. Some of the people in the group stood under the far end of the dripping awning to smoke. It kept raining and stopping, raining and stopping, so there was nothing to do but go into the mall to watch a movie. When we came out, night had fallen. We crossed the grassy triangle and let ourselves through the kitchen door. We made dinner: garlicky chicken and rice in broth, a four day old loaf of bread split down the middle, buttered, quickly revived under the grill. Enough for everyone to share. Who was Tantalus? I heard someone ask in the course of conversation. There was ambrosia involved. Stolen nectar from the gods, which in my childhood was the name of a sweet rolled up in colored cellophane for the holidays, dense with citrus and dates and nuts. Punishment, always punishment— for giving in to desire and snatching what the body said it wanted, needed, wanted. The mouth being only the first passage. What the branches bore, gold and sweet and heavy— What the water offered to quench the hot little fire in the gut— The question is always: Does anything ever completely satisfy? Run for it, I want to say. Yes, run with that broken-off branch and the purloined sweetmeat, run even now and celebrate the brightest flame you can find to share with others huddled in the dark.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
The years teach much that the days never know*
The years teach much that the days never know—
You know, the parts that live beyond the margins,
beyond what sage or bearded philosopher could know—
Theory is when you think you know the sound of shoes
on the grass; praxis is the knife-edged blade made known
to unsuspecting flesh. At noon the sun is overhead,
a yellow crayon smudge you know lies somewhere behind
thick tarp of cloud. You know its whereabouts the way
your heart lists toward all it may have ever known
of ardent love or quiet kindness: not one particular
thing, or one blazing example you once knew from long
ago. Not that it makes a difference: the heart’s its most
inscrutable mystery. Joyless, it knows to yearn for joy;
in fullness, knows to sense the turning of the wheel.
* ~ Emerson
In response to small stone (185) and Morning Porch.
Vigil
“… every dead thing,
In whom Love wrought new alchemy.”
~ John Donne, “A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy’s Day”
O loves, o little ones, tonight
we see the sliver of a moon—
impeccable stain of milk
on saucer’s rim,
last tapering cursive
letter on the slate—
and as the dark speeds up
some more into the deeper dark,
Orion’s belt floats high
above our heavy hearts:
O sorrow, you
have changed us all—
In response to Via Negativa: Nocturne.
Outlast
Breath,
branch,
tree,
wrought
metal
filigree—
frost
that glints
in points
throughout
the yard:
electric
fence,
theory of
expectancy—
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Fourth Wall
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”
~ Mary Oliver
Would you like to be cremated? asks the niece of the woman propped up in the bed, ailing, waiting for her end to come— which could be this evening, tomorrow, the day after, the week after, next month. The undertaker and his sons explain the options and arrangements, what they will do, how they will wash and clean and dress, make the body ready for the family and community to come and view. Outside it is cold, it is winter, the tree line sharper than a drypoint etching on a metal plate. Someone is shoveling snow in a driveway, someone is splitting and stacking wood for the fire. When it is a child dying almost as soon as he is born— disjointed body and no sight— anyone can see there cannot be a bulky machine brought in to break up the earth. The undertaker knows that would be unseemly; and so he writes, Have the sexton, all dirt and indifference, remain at hand… The smell of loam is faintly sweet-sour, like milk left on the windowsill overnight. It could be love, it could be grief, it could be the end, the middle, the beginning, all equally lit and brilliant. Anyone can see how hard it is to slide the last button into its hole, push the box into the fiercely burning chamber. Still, the lips demand their carmine and their blush. Dusky limbs treasure the network of veins through which, so recently, the world plucked hard at the days’ bright threads. Goodbye for now, au revoir; know that each kiss I give you means so much more than fondness, uncertainty, or distress.
In response to thus: postage.
99 Lines
“…áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.” ~ “Pied Beauty,” Gerard Manley Hopkins
For doors unbarred and locks unlatched at first light
For gentle rumbling within rooms as bodies pulled out of the station of sleep
For the shuffling of slippered feet on creaking floors
For spurs and ambered feathers and clouds of yellow dust
risen with the repeated chorus of roosters
For beds of yerba buena, ginger flowers, and marigolds heavy with dew
For mist that would not lift till almost noon
For dark, pili-nut bodies of cockroaches
skittering under the sink with the yellow flood of kitchen light
For cold water heated in an aluminum pot on the electric stove
and the large green plastic pail into which it was poured in the bathroom stall
For the eggs brought to boil with the morning coffee
and the fist-sized rolls of bread warm
in a paper sack from the corner bakery
For the liquid green flick of lizards’ tails behind screens
and doors that closed too quickly on them
For the part that they gave up in order to save the whole
For the story of the neighbor’s child
For her little finger caught in the door’s rusty hinge
so she never again spoke from shock
For the boy whose mother went missing only to be found
in pieces, hacked and stuffed into a large packing box
For the cigarillo clenched in the laundrywoman’s teeth
and her skirts bunched damp between her haunches
For the ridged bar of Perla soap by her feet
as she beat clothes by the water pump
For the fumes of diesel and petrol in the streets
and the unpredictable times of water delivery service
For the holes that were dug in the back yard
in the shadow of sayote vines whose tendrils
were like miniature telephone coils
For the black pig in the pit and the noise that it made
and the bleating goats tethered to the guava tree
For the fortune seekers bent on the trail
of a golden Buddha hidden in the hills
For the wall where a boy was shot by Japanese soldiers
during the war and the trees into which he poured
the last two lines of a song
For the crack in the central aisle of the old cathedral
and statues of the crucified Christ brooding in the shadows
For trays of eggs delivered to the nuns in the convent
so they could pray on their knees for fair weather
For the former dictator’s destroyed bust
For its missing eyes, ears, its blasted nose
For the vegetation at its base— leaves of olive,
khaki, drab— the colors of military fatigue
For the soldier who raided the arsenal
before disappearing underground
For the generation of men and women who marched
with red flags across the bridge
For the colony of termites found in the ancestral house
and the flying ants that scaled the air with their wings
For fingers that curled into fists and fists
pushed deep into pockets in order to hide
the heart’s jagged audible trembling
For the hands that made and hurled the bombs
because bellies were hungry for bread
For the animal with matted fur we passed each day
at the neighbor’s gate, snarling and straining at the leash
For you who said Don’t let the dog smell your fear
For you who sported a well-pressed cotton shirt
a good wool coat a feather in your hatband
For the stoppered bottles of Old Spice
and English Leather lined up on the windowsill
For the inside of the closet door
covered with drawings in a childish hand
For the tins of Marca Oso wrapped in brown paper
brought home from the store
For the copies of Little Women and Alice in Wonderland
and the faint pencil marks on the inside cover saying 2.50
For the defense lawyer you ordered to stop
chewing gum while court was in session
For you who taught the difference between imagination
and an impoverished imagination
For you who would not trust anyone else to type up
a judicial decision
For you who at the dinner table tolerated fingers
mimicking the slide up and down a piano keyboard
in Fur Elise and Aragonaise
For the woman who squeezed milk from her breasts
into the child’s eye because she had conjunctivitis
For the storekeepers who knew you by name
For the barber shop in the center of town
and the restaurant selling noodles and egg pie
For the shoeshine boys in the plaza
smartly snapping their squares of chamois in the air
For the Chinese merchants bringing a gift of King Sue jamon
on Christmas day and the godchildren that came
with their carols and envelopes for cash
For the nap the blessed nap
half an hour every afternoon without fail
and an hour on weekends
For the walk early mornings around the lake
in the park and the trip to the beach on Black Saturday
For the night you cried I think you cried
what was it for you cried sitting by yourself
on the porch in your kamiseta
For the dream that visits as if to say this time
is that time and some things do not change
~ in memoriam, Gabriel Zafra Aguilar (1913-1990)
In response to Via Negativa: The Legend of the Cosmic Hen.
Dear little worm of niggling jealousy,
worm of a thousand and one disguises:
today I acknowledge you live in me too.
Teach me to see your other aspect, the one
that patiently cultivates the soil in the dark,
tunneling without sight beneath the foundations
where it is easy to believe every rumor that carries
from the world above, like a tinny echo on flimsy
string— Like you, I have only myself, my only
implement for navigating the formidable expanse
ahead: so much debris, thick veins of gravel
and flint, rain of mud and muck pressing
down on pockets of growth and precious air
—And the reward? Luxuriant green, thick
dream a body could sink back in.
In response to small stone (180).