1.
And our eyes opened like wounds.

And our wounds declared their solemn hurts,

and the stars reflected the beeswax of history,

the chipped ivories, the runaway ghosts

making fire in the blinding wild.

Arms like branches and hair like leaves,

at night we mistook them

for the blackest of trees.
2.
No melody but gong-beat

           No blade but stone

                      No memory but rain
No code but ritual

           split into dreamscape and amber
Hungry conquistador

           we offer you alms

                      we offer you carabao butter and clams
We offer you minor drone

           helpless shoreline
Coral like benthic saints

           hardwood that took a tribe to fell

                      they crushed us and cut us
and buttressed their churches

           with our bones
We had a god once

           we suckled from her breasts the sea
Fractals split from sand

           No torrent because dam
3.
The locusts came for our paddies.

We came for the locusts in return.
When were we slaves?

We pined for wages.

Hauled our souls from the forest.
Look at our backs

sore from wishing for wine,

our ports trafficking in despair.
We chased the pirates down the coastline.

Caught up to them by the bay

then prayed as we rinsed

their blood from the planks.
Sad Magwayan, we offer our arms as oars

as you ferry them to Sulad.
Forgive us our fury. Suffer us our ribcages.

Deliver us from the sun

that pries open our rage. 
4.
Brother: That we are alive

means that no one deemed our fathers

worthy of killing.
5.
When the mother

           felt her throat constrict

                      into the first Salidumay
When the first godseed

           was planted on the shaman’s forehead
When the first fowl

           was slain over Apo’s grave
When the first sailor

           saw the startled forager

                      unlock the secret of grass
He must have thought
Home

           I must tell everyone about this