Capiz Enchantment

IT IS quite comforting:
the capiz shells white and red,
stringed alternately
with little native cone-shaped shells,
mother lined up hanging from the beams
all through the veranda, which are wind chimes
I said, rather than curtain --
when they chime!
That sound, or music should I call it,
when it plays I aim to name
but I end up enthralled.

How this woman-made devise
had been made to the arrangement
of natural and musical sounds like that
of the rustling of mahogany and narra leaves
around the house that echo the silent rustle
of acacia leaves in that distant summertime
of my childhood back in that old home,
or is it rather much like that of the music
one hears of the flight of a flock of fairies
passing over the bamboos one hot twilight.

How the chiming resonate that childhood,
when the shells are hit by wind; they twist,
and they seem to struggle, as if to exert in flying
to get out of captivity of string and pattern and beauty.
But it must only be the wind’s working;
then turns into whisper that leads to transformations:
balusters to ventanillas wide open
and the chimes to windows,
making the inside of the house rather bare
and alluring to an outsider’s eyes
alike to the way a maiden was clothed the European style
in this tropical land -- prone to malice, or subject of beauty.

The white lattice glass curtains fiercely blown
by summer wind, like pristine water graciously flowing
out of the precipice which are actually windows
then hit my face and bring sting of cut.
It is, indeed, perfectly comforting;
yet as sharp as the edge of a capiz shell,
and sharp as the mystery of the chime,
resonating the ephemeral visitation of memory:
alas! when they chime again,
they bring back the past anew,
then leave bruises without a clue.

Karagatan

Sinisisid ako ng sinag ng buwan
Hinihiwang mariin ng puting liwanag
Bumabaon ang mainit na talim
Pinapaso ng tanglaw na malamig

Mukha kong sinindihan ng kadiliman
Bughaw na ngayon ang ngiting maitim
Malalim ang nilulunod na dibdib
Humahampas ang kapayapaan ng tubig

Abot hanggang dulo aking kalawakan
Makitid ang sigwa ng maalong paghampas
Daluyong na kinikimkim ay mapangahas
Buwan ay sinusuntok nang pahalang

Pinipigil sa ilog ang agos na maalat
Nilulubid sa pag-asa dalampasigang pangarap

Climbing

I remember climbing up the azotea
one afternoon I went to our neighbor’s
passing over the stone-cement fence
only two careful steps and a hold of breath
because I picked caramay fruits
that fell in their yard while you pulled
at branches so the fruits be felled;
nobody was home but the two of us,
no one was in the other house either.

I also remember you once climbed up
our room through the window
holding on to the balusters of the ventanilla
after I lifted you up to the beam of the ground floor
because we were locked out for coming
home deplorably late because we
lost and tried to recover at the perya;
Mama was there when you opened
the window as I whispered you do carefully.

How could we have admitted
climbing isn’t a talent we hadn’t.
We have mastered climbing,
though not that which we can boast our cousins
who were indubitably good at climbing
the santol, caimito, mangga, sarguelas.
But our every climb, too, entails coming down.