The Old Man’s Tale

At night, when almost everyone's asleep, the old 
man starts recounting his war tales.

His stories are nothing but a litany.
Long. Monotonous. Dull.                                                       
Everything that transpired more than half a century ago 
is still vivid in his mind, 
                        as vivid as the coruscating stars in the skies. 

According to him:

during the Japanese occupation he and other people 
from the Poblacion fled to seek refuge from expected atrocities. 
They found themselves building huts in upland areas, and 
they started raising goats and heirloom crops.

Kinakaw, katisa, katoka, et cetera.

A cataract has blurred his vision, but his memory is unclouded and 
                        faultless and faithful.

His stories are nothing but a litany.
Long. Monotonous. Dull.

But the old man shares his tales without a
trace of agony. He narrates his tales with a tinge of 
homesickness, for the old man’s wish in his 
youth was simple: 
                        that his yam may yield plump and dark
                       purple tubers.

Prayer

Last night, she mumbled a brief prayer.
Brief because her God hates verbose 
prayer. She prayed for abundance.
This morning, she woke up
to the early gossip of sparrows
perching on the neighbor's clothesline.
Outside, the coral vines are pregnant 
with umbels and umbels of salmon-pink 
flowers. The tambis fruits now wear bright 
red regalia. When night comes, she
is certain the bats will have their fill.
And the jackfruit, because it's overripe, 
bursts open on one side and gives 
birth to fleshy and juicy pulps. 
The sharp aroma of hierba buena
has found its way through the
wooden jalousies, marrying the burnt 
smell of sautéed garlic from the kitchen.
These are the initial answers to
her prayer.