09-23-2016, 07:11 PM
Myrna Peña-Reyes
SAN JUAN
The goat that used to bleat in our yard ---
her throat slit, her hide burned
and scraped by neighbors
for the feast of San Juan.
At the water pump in the sun
they wrenched coiled colors
out of the wound, and bared the ribs
of the ivory goat on the ground ---
from a distance they were hanging
pearl necklaces on their arms.
When they held her neck
did she make a sound?
It was screaming, I thought,
when I covered my ears
and heard myself.
The fires burst under the pots
and dogs fought
over singed hair and blood.
Later, from far away,
friends called my name, singing
with guitars to the sea.
1969
FOR E.K.
(Who Lost His Father in the War)
He had been dead a week
When you found him
On a mountain ledge;
The flies buzzed louder
When you piled dry boughs on them
And shooed away the scavenging lizard
Who glared at you
Before it crawled away.
You pushed a bloated arm
Into the flames that crackled
Over his body ---
And remembered the fireflies
He had caught in a glass jar
For a proud boy
To carry around at night.
1970
BREAKING THROUGH
Haltingly I undo the knots
around your parcel that came this morning.
A small box should require little labor,
but you've always been thorough,
tying things tight and well.
The twine lengthens,
curls beside the box.
I see your fingers bind and pull,
snapping the knots into place
(once your belt slapped sharply against my skin).
You hoped the package would hold its shape
across 10,000 miles of ocean.
It's not a bride's superstition
that leaves the scissors in the drawer.
Unraveling what you've done with love
I practice more than patience
a kind of thoroughness
I couldn't see before.
I shall not let it pass.
My father, this undoing is
what binds us.
1976
RED SUNFLOWER
I remember Mother lying
in the room forbidden to children.
We could stand at the door
but not go in. No matter.
Outside, fields and trees stretched our days.
One afternoon restless with the rain
I stood at her door.
She smiled, then beckoned.
Under the gauze on her breast
a red sunflower burst and bled.
Her other arm stiffened
like the black branch of a tree.
I ran as she called my name.
I stayed away that night
when they gathered in her room
and called the children near.
They said there was nothing to fear.
But as I listened in the dark
that red flower opening beside me
bled and burst
the black bark on its tree.
1977
RUTH WAS NOT PENELOPE
For Bill
Ten thousand miles west
the moon rolls out of a warm sea,
grazes the palm fronds,
then catches up with the stars
where it hangs silver clear.
The streets fill up with children.
To be your bride
I came where summer is a season
that burns itself too soon.
Now, I start to feel
the winds blow colder each winter.
When I talk this way
I cannot be your Ruth.
I was a child too long
ten thousand miles away.
Will you understand it when I say
that there, forever,
I could be your Penelope?
1983
THE RIVER SINGING STONE
Through brush and over boulders
we followed the sound of water
hidden in the trees.
The natives we met on the narrow trails
carrying chickens and bananas
to sell in the city answered,
"The waterfall? --- not too far,
after the next hill."
We walked to the hill, and the next,
and the next.
You were annoyed.
You had said you would find it easily,
having gone there often in your youth.
We stopped counting the hours,
kilometers we walked uphill and down,
forward and back, pursuing that sound.
We couldn't just follow the river ---
there were boulders, thickets, cliffs,
and we, no longer young.
Winded and sweaty, we rested.
Such trickery --- was it near,
did we hear the roar of the falls,
or just the sound of water
squeezing through boulders,
pounding rocks into pebbles,
grinding gravel into sand?
But it was late.
We had to go home.
We listened
to the river singing,
the river singing stone.
1983
GRANDMOTHER'S JEWELS
On her sick bed Grandmother talked
about her lost bracelet,
the diamond ring borrowed
by a forgetful cousin,
her rice lands taken
by the travelling casino
she had followed from town to town.
"Enough, enough," her daughter answered,
"You can't take anything with you,"
then left her to a servant
who gossiped away the days
with the maids next door.
So it went for years ---
Grandmother, with eyes thick as stone,
saw nothing else
but what had been,
complained she was alone too long.
One morning when she failed to ring
they found her too quiet
in her cold and shriveled skin.
Now, twenty years later,
hardened by deafness,
my aunt remembers those jewels, the land.
I listen.
Anything is better
than memory silenced
in a frightened hand.
1986
THE MANONG AND HIS DOG
10,000 miles and 50 years away from home
his is a small room
in a kababayan's house,
a place for young immigrants,
not O.T.'s like him ---
Their college English
puts his accent down.
His friends
long settled in dim hotels near Chinatown
grow distant. "Get rid of that dog,
salamabits, he's too old," they say,
old men who'd stopped saving long ago
for that trip home.
They have no need
for smart-mouth doctors or nurses
who have it easier
than their railroad-hopping,
apple-picking years.
It's for his old dog no hotel would take
he stays with strangers,
pays higher rent ---
for some things he'd left behind,
though he and his landlord's family
have less to talk about.
They tell him
Manila has hot dogs and high-rise homes,
escalators in large department stores,
jeepneys and buses on crowded streets.
There were horse-drawn calesas
and streetcars in '33.
He remembers the province,
rice fields, and birds
bringing a cool dawn,
long beaches and warm seas
where dogs and children shake the water,
the family he left ---
who would be there?
Asleep, stretched close against his body,
his dog whimpers, dreams running,
paws quivering in stride.
Fenced in by city yard
jumping's what he did best,
but that, too, has grown less.
Sleeping and dreaming mark their days.
Somewhere the old dog runs,
taking them closer to home.
1986
LOADING
The newsboy-cigarette vendor,
peanut-popcorn-popsickle man
thrust their goods under our faces.
Too tired to talk,
we try to turn away.
It seems the loading
will never end.
Shouted commands
the grunts of stevedores
chains and pulleys
moving crates of Coca-cola
cerveza negra kerosene cans
rank sacks of copra;
the mournful bleating of carabaos
hoisted by their horns
onto the open cargo deck.
We turn to the children
diving for coins
we throw into the heaving sea.
One gives all to his little brother
who watches from a pier
naked and missing a hand.
It seems the loading
will never end.
1991
WATCHERS AND TRAINERS
How much longer?
For over a year we've wondered how the pup
we found freezing in an alley
(Bantay, we named him, the Watcher
who terrorized the newsboy
but not the postman who saw through
his hundred and fifty pound bluff,
"all bark," he laughed), at fifteen
is older than our years combined.
Now, we watch over him.
But for those numb nerves in his back
and hip bones out of their sockets,
he looks forward to supper and treats,
tracks movement and sound,
craning his neck from the floor
on his foam rubber pad with the fake fur cover
lined with absorbent Peach-Sheet and chucks
we replace over and over.
Sometimes, coming home from jobs,
we feel resentment rise
when he gestures anxiously
with front paws and head, sighing loudly
from his soiled bed.
And so once more we turn him over,
freshen up his acrid body
with Baby Wipes and rinse-free shampoo,
rub him dry with paper towels,
re-line his pad with new absorbents,
then ease him back on his good side
and bring him water.
He thanks us with his clouded eyes,
and we see the dog
who would bark at contrails,
who slept by the bedroom door
we kept open on hot August nights,
who jumped into bed with us
when the thunders stormed;
who did shake hands, salute, sit up pretty,
snuggle, roll over,
dead dog.
Nursemaids for God-knows-how-much-longer
we put off the final decision;
each time he has us trained
to find our way with grace
to that same end.
1995
SAN JUAN
The goat that used to bleat in our yard ---
her throat slit, her hide burned
and scraped by neighbors
for the feast of San Juan.
At the water pump in the sun
they wrenched coiled colors
out of the wound, and bared the ribs
of the ivory goat on the ground ---
from a distance they were hanging
pearl necklaces on their arms.
When they held her neck
did she make a sound?
It was screaming, I thought,
when I covered my ears
and heard myself.
The fires burst under the pots
and dogs fought
over singed hair and blood.
Later, from far away,
friends called my name, singing
with guitars to the sea.
1969
FOR E.K.
(Who Lost His Father in the War)
He had been dead a week
When you found him
On a mountain ledge;
The flies buzzed louder
When you piled dry boughs on them
And shooed away the scavenging lizard
Who glared at you
Before it crawled away.
You pushed a bloated arm
Into the flames that crackled
Over his body ---
And remembered the fireflies
He had caught in a glass jar
For a proud boy
To carry around at night.
1970
BREAKING THROUGH
Haltingly I undo the knots
around your parcel that came this morning.
A small box should require little labor,
but you've always been thorough,
tying things tight and well.
The twine lengthens,
curls beside the box.
I see your fingers bind and pull,
snapping the knots into place
(once your belt slapped sharply against my skin).
You hoped the package would hold its shape
across 10,000 miles of ocean.
It's not a bride's superstition
that leaves the scissors in the drawer.
Unraveling what you've done with love
I practice more than patience
a kind of thoroughness
I couldn't see before.
I shall not let it pass.
My father, this undoing is
what binds us.
1976
RED SUNFLOWER
I remember Mother lying
in the room forbidden to children.
We could stand at the door
but not go in. No matter.
Outside, fields and trees stretched our days.
One afternoon restless with the rain
I stood at her door.
She smiled, then beckoned.
Under the gauze on her breast
a red sunflower burst and bled.
Her other arm stiffened
like the black branch of a tree.
I ran as she called my name.
I stayed away that night
when they gathered in her room
and called the children near.
They said there was nothing to fear.
But as I listened in the dark
that red flower opening beside me
bled and burst
the black bark on its tree.
1977
RUTH WAS NOT PENELOPE
For Bill
Ten thousand miles west
the moon rolls out of a warm sea,
grazes the palm fronds,
then catches up with the stars
where it hangs silver clear.
The streets fill up with children.
To be your bride
I came where summer is a season
that burns itself too soon.
Now, I start to feel
the winds blow colder each winter.
When I talk this way
I cannot be your Ruth.
I was a child too long
ten thousand miles away.
Will you understand it when I say
that there, forever,
I could be your Penelope?
1983
THE RIVER SINGING STONE
Through brush and over boulders
we followed the sound of water
hidden in the trees.
The natives we met on the narrow trails
carrying chickens and bananas
to sell in the city answered,
"The waterfall? --- not too far,
after the next hill."
We walked to the hill, and the next,
and the next.
You were annoyed.
You had said you would find it easily,
having gone there often in your youth.
We stopped counting the hours,
kilometers we walked uphill and down,
forward and back, pursuing that sound.
We couldn't just follow the river ---
there were boulders, thickets, cliffs,
and we, no longer young.
Winded and sweaty, we rested.
Such trickery --- was it near,
did we hear the roar of the falls,
or just the sound of water
squeezing through boulders,
pounding rocks into pebbles,
grinding gravel into sand?
But it was late.
We had to go home.
We listened
to the river singing,
the river singing stone.
1983
GRANDMOTHER'S JEWELS
On her sick bed Grandmother talked
about her lost bracelet,
the diamond ring borrowed
by a forgetful cousin,
her rice lands taken
by the travelling casino
she had followed from town to town.
"Enough, enough," her daughter answered,
"You can't take anything with you,"
then left her to a servant
who gossiped away the days
with the maids next door.
So it went for years ---
Grandmother, with eyes thick as stone,
saw nothing else
but what had been,
complained she was alone too long.
One morning when she failed to ring
they found her too quiet
in her cold and shriveled skin.
Now, twenty years later,
hardened by deafness,
my aunt remembers those jewels, the land.
I listen.
Anything is better
than memory silenced
in a frightened hand.
1986
THE MANONG AND HIS DOG
10,000 miles and 50 years away from home
his is a small room
in a kababayan's house,
a place for young immigrants,
not O.T.'s like him ---
Their college English
puts his accent down.
His friends
long settled in dim hotels near Chinatown
grow distant. "Get rid of that dog,
salamabits, he's too old," they say,
old men who'd stopped saving long ago
for that trip home.
They have no need
for smart-mouth doctors or nurses
who have it easier
than their railroad-hopping,
apple-picking years.
It's for his old dog no hotel would take
he stays with strangers,
pays higher rent ---
for some things he'd left behind,
though he and his landlord's family
have less to talk about.
They tell him
Manila has hot dogs and high-rise homes,
escalators in large department stores,
jeepneys and buses on crowded streets.
There were horse-drawn calesas
and streetcars in '33.
He remembers the province,
rice fields, and birds
bringing a cool dawn,
long beaches and warm seas
where dogs and children shake the water,
the family he left ---
who would be there?
Asleep, stretched close against his body,
his dog whimpers, dreams running,
paws quivering in stride.
Fenced in by city yard
jumping's what he did best,
but that, too, has grown less.
Sleeping and dreaming mark their days.
Somewhere the old dog runs,
taking them closer to home.
1986
LOADING
The newsboy-cigarette vendor,
peanut-popcorn-popsickle man
thrust their goods under our faces.
Too tired to talk,
we try to turn away.
It seems the loading
will never end.
Shouted commands
the grunts of stevedores
chains and pulleys
moving crates of Coca-cola
cerveza negra kerosene cans
rank sacks of copra;
the mournful bleating of carabaos
hoisted by their horns
onto the open cargo deck.
We turn to the children
diving for coins
we throw into the heaving sea.
One gives all to his little brother
who watches from a pier
naked and missing a hand.
It seems the loading
will never end.
1991
WATCHERS AND TRAINERS
How much longer?
For over a year we've wondered how the pup
we found freezing in an alley
(Bantay, we named him, the Watcher
who terrorized the newsboy
but not the postman who saw through
his hundred and fifty pound bluff,
"all bark," he laughed), at fifteen
is older than our years combined.
Now, we watch over him.
But for those numb nerves in his back
and hip bones out of their sockets,
he looks forward to supper and treats,
tracks movement and sound,
craning his neck from the floor
on his foam rubber pad with the fake fur cover
lined with absorbent Peach-Sheet and chucks
we replace over and over.
Sometimes, coming home from jobs,
we feel resentment rise
when he gestures anxiously
with front paws and head, sighing loudly
from his soiled bed.
And so once more we turn him over,
freshen up his acrid body
with Baby Wipes and rinse-free shampoo,
rub him dry with paper towels,
re-line his pad with new absorbents,
then ease him back on his good side
and bring him water.
He thanks us with his clouded eyes,
and we see the dog
who would bark at contrails,
who slept by the bedroom door
we kept open on hot August nights,
who jumped into bed with us
when the thunders stormed;
who did shake hands, salute, sit up pretty,
snuggle, roll over,
dead dog.
Nursemaids for God-knows-how-much-longer
we put off the final decision;
each time he has us trained
to find our way with grace
to that same end.
1995