These Ruins Remain My Only Gifts
© by Emily Porcincula Lawsin
In Memory of the Victims of the Ampatuan Massacre
For you, brown widow, I bring
Your journalist’s tattered notebooks, exploded pens, and spilt ink-wells:
The shape of kneeling railroad spikes with rusted springs.
Followed by lost door knockers and burnt iron fence posts,
Cross-bound by Manila hemp and splintered bamboo:
Confiscated garden tools guarded by guilt, but no shame.
All found objects one comrade collects as art
Mirrored here in the dustbowl’s abandoned fields,
Where a caravan of blood stains the tire-marked grasses
And the east wind blows fire into the seas that part us.
Here, we cannot bury our grief in an unmarked coffin!
Shaken by such shallow graves sinking beside us,
Our children scream as the ancestors wake.
While we find pebbles, pennies, and partial pesos as poor pacifiers
To string this raging rosary, chanting for justice across sacred lands:
My God, my god, why have you forsaken me?
April 29, 2010
Ann Arbor, Michigan
For the
Anthology of Rage: 100 Poems. 100 Filipino Poets.
Edited by Joel Salud (on Facebook)