Alfredo Navarro Salanga: For Edwin Thumboo and All of Us Who Suffer Through English in Asia

For Edwin Thumboo and All of Us  Who Suffer Through English in Asia by Alfredo Navarro Salanga

A travesty, they say, 

a tapestry, we contend,

as we worm verses

into languaged

silk.

Or silt,

they say, these cocoons

are empty anyway—

Cotton, they add,      cotton

is the cloth of the people.

Silk is as good as silt to

them,

butterflies a luxury

because inedible,

except in extreme cases

because hunger

gives them

strange appetites.

Poetry is as silk is

just as novels are, for that matter,

as pretty flowers

on a table.

When empty, the flowers fade

into other meanings:

"Poet,

can verses in your language

feed me?"

Can your verses

                               cocoon

my fear? Can it

shut off

the howling

of my children,

their hungry mouths

wide as mothwings,

the wick

of my lamp gone dry?

"Poet,

can verses in my language

feed me?"

Can they build 

                        a cocoon

large enough

to weave

my anger?

Or

will your verses

remain

food for the few

who love tapestries

who love silk

who love butterflies

and flowers

                     on their tables?#