I, Girl

20 FILIPINA SUN

my mama
with her all knowing eyes
and hands withered with experience
opened her mouth
and took me back
to 1970s philippines
took me back to a sun-scorched land
of smoke and sour tamarinds and lovely white sampaguitas
whisked me away to the humbled streets of laguna
pressed my face against the mud
my nose against the dirty wrinkled peso bills and copper sentimos
and gave me a taste of what it's like
to be a filipina in nature

my mama grew up on the streets
played with strings of luck and not many dolls
took the sun and the desperation and the roughness of the streets into her flesh
and made it into an armour
she bled war
and soon she molded the lands into a cannon
catapulted herself across the sea
and clawed her way up the shores of a foreign nation
with its ice and winds at maraming iba't ibang lengguahe
yet the ice did not smother her fire
and my mama blazed through the continent
melting mountains and creating rivers
and gave me a taste of what it's like
to be a filipina in nature

she carried her immigrant children on her back
a slack husband trailing behind
and settled into a land
of honey and snow and comfort
when her immigrant children misbehaved
on a land that did not breed their skin
she would give them a taste of what it's like
to be a filipina in nature

when the sun starts to set for a hundredth time
and the sun-scorched land
of smoke and sour tamarinds and lovely white sampaguitas
begin to fade like a yellowed photograph
even then
when i'd slip and forget where i came from
in a foreign land that's slowly overtaking all of me
my mama would remind me
with her all-knowing eyes
and hands withered with age
of what it's like
to be a filipina in nature

i.