Habagat

for Clea

by Justine C. Tajonera

We escaped the storm in Manila by a day.
The skies were overcast for days at the beach.
While we walked the length of Station 1 and 2,
I watched the perfect curve of your cheek, the
way a bikini, which I've dreaded my whole life, was
nothing to you. Around you, the time has come. Pork
barrels are rolling open like so many mouths with lolling
tongues, the streets at home are filling up with murky
water, the seas are heating up like a potent
soup. By the time we come back to Manila,
the people will have taken to the streets.
I want you to keep running unhampered in the sand.
I want you to be cheeky and defiant, the way
you are now as you hold up that stick in your hands.
I want you to kick up the dust and say
want you want. All I wish for are at least
a few seasons of amihan to hold up the tumult
that you are. All I wish for are a few quiet
summers for you, for your children, when there
are no crippling droughts, no floods,
in the coming months, to survive.

Boracay, August 18, 2013

Manila Did Not Drown

Manila Did Not Drown
- Manila, after August 8, 2012

This storm came nameless,
dragging at the tails of another typhoon,
filling our streets mercilessly and equitably
with muddy, debris-strewn water.

"It's only water," some people say
through their tears, clutching a bag of clothes,
a radio, holding fast to babies in plastic bins
while soldiers ferry old men and women
on their backs, as some of them form
human bridges over the floodwater
and prisoners give up their food for others.

Over the sound of rain are whistles
from rubber boats, looking for anyone to be rescued.
Over the sound of rain are collective cries
for hot rice and bottled water and blankets and breast milk
and warm hands to hold orphaned children.

No one will be left behind, not here, not now,
and those aren't just words, they are in the real
grasp of those packing cans of sardines to give away,
in the pictures of divers and mermaids smiling in the water,
in the prayers and the tears these past three days
that will not be forgotten.
We rose up with a bittersweet laugh
to forgive, begin again.

- Justine C. Tajonera


Photo from collective FB Posts