A poem by Marlon Hacla, translated from the Filipino by Kristine Ong Muslim
When you left, researchers began to dream up theories
about how you and I came to be: a few watchful midday waves
and scenes exacting redemption from the sea. A series of creation myths
weighed down by tragedy and some calculated doubts. But I do not
also know. I could have collected a broken television set,
some rice grains, a stranger’s nude pictures, and I can just as easily
set up a new version of history. I am now repairing
the hinges of your door. The windows take turns letting in
the shade, the curtain tampers with the paleness of light, someone gives
away his name for the old wall against where I pushed you, where
I stroked your collarbone so I can feign interest in your figure,
so I can, for a short time, pore over your skin before I fill you
with my interpretation, before I depress you with ideas that contradict
what I want to smooth out among the parts moistened by the night.
Meanwhile, rain pours another set of questions.
Guttural whispers were passed from one leaf to another,
the garden blossomed with impressions, and there was a likely opening
of a thousand once-lidded eyes to peek at whether or not it is time
to wake. The nipa thatches are weeping. I am burning
receipts and confiscating mirrors. Let me
use your notebook because of this muddled-up situation
ongoing while the world covets a shape to call its own, while there are screams
from faraway objects, while the surface of the sea banters
with the hush of its groundswell, which is maybe its special way
of carrying out its vow that although it knows wanting
of the turbulence of the forces, it needs to spin, it needs
to pursue its own wonders to advance
its own beauty, for the sake of those who drown themselves
in its soul. My beloved Ysabel, I am putting the final touches
on new cracks of dawn while you are still not here. I am chronicling
the damages I have inflicted while you are still refusing to talk.
I am picking camias blossoms and have just finished
a repartee with Lara and Violeta. I have just been to a chair factory
since we were robbed again while my back was turned. Still here
are your sentient rocks, the flutes, though among the stolen items was the severed head
of Saint Diomedes, unfortunately. I inserted a rubato
in the shrill wind to bring this afternoon to an end. I am mortified
by the unabashed blueness of sky, but it is truly the one thing that livens up
my statements, even if I am perpetually shushed up, even if I keep losing a part
of my soul. Unclothed, I am now hearing voices
and I feel better, it feels like the thrill of unearthing new
treasures, like I am making a big step forward in the discovery of your
fears, one solid foundation after another is added to my proficiency
in conveying my ideas. I want to show off to you how I can now be mocked
using only a few simple sentences and a short
tabulation, I will translate it into discourses on suffering.
Handpicked units of infidelities. Floral blanket to cloak
two bodies twitching slowly, moving precisely
toward the innocence of sleek flesh, back to the silvery stares
that track the dark’s explosion of secrets, briefly hesitating at the first sign
of panic because just like a new opening in the bark of a tree,
it will sing sonatinas until it finds the one it is destined to kiss.
Now, I rub my lips with the glow from a mound
of lit candles. I smash plums against the wall. An old woman burns
next door the dry leaves I have swept into a heap in my backyard,
clouds capture other clouds, widows rehearse
their dance between the stars. While you still haven’t sent me
a letter, I watch how the view sings about its long-gone thrills,
watch the contented sighs of the shoreline, cut up
pictures about the end of the world. I have not ceased from sharpening
my tongue. I still go about matching sounds with images
in an attempt to make sense of my own
fate. One corner in your wardrobe closet serves as the joint where leaves
of my remembrances spring out. I gave new names
to the things you have left behind: Maria for the comb, Felicidad
for your five handkerchiefs, Clemente for your yellowing
diary, Herminia for your discarded chemise.
One of those things I truly take pleasure in, like the slow, gentle strumming
of guitar strings, like a woman’s body sinking
in a lake. Like a pair of hide to rouse
the celestial systems of interrogating the ghosts
of our waning strengths. Like how you used to call me Mighty
Warrior in a distant past, when death was still unheard of and we still take
instructions from the stars. Three dances of merriment are performed
by banana trees. Today is Auntie Maring’s funeral
so tomorrow, we will look for doves, we will prepare
stories about hauntings, roses that have stalks longer than ten
inches, and ten cases of beer for the suddenness
of the late night. This world has furthered its bedlam.
A ruby pulses inside a pocket and then stops, pulses
again for a few seconds, and remains still for a long
time until it is touched once again with the wonder that there is
such a thing that can wound dreams, but on the one hand,
it is a wound as well if you closely inspect all aspects of the nature
of the reflected light it carries: rays of bliss, devotion
that remains unstructured, bloodied bird chirping at a mirror. Thin
and pallid wings folded over and over and flapped again
for a hundred times to create a deafening drone as
harbinger of the changing shape of our history.
I already miss being among sacred things, may you allow
me to pack up my things in search of you. I folded in the luggage
the entire altar, I saved up strings of ylang-ylang
and readied with plans for keeping them
fresh, I only need a stray breeze and some drops
of rain and I can already make visible the areas that hide your
traces. The moment I sense, no matter how slightly, your light
being near, I will propel fireworks with a hundred
different colors to the sky, and may you reply with a never-ending chorus
and I will run to you willingly, as you willed.