Ricardo de M. Ungria: Peace and Dinabaw

I.

Peace of Paper

eye to cross eye

the encounters come

                                peacemeal

like bomb blast & rote of raids, the hide-

and sick of it, the running

away and getting

                      caught

in the crossfire hurricane,

the deaths and houses burned

                           so natural

the usual suspect’s denials

                                so natural

to leave so many without a roof

above their heads and hearts,

                fatherless   brotherless   sisterless

children dying experimental,

a matter of consequence

so  natural  

no more need for onions

the fear and terror pure

incomprehensible

dying in the sun

left to rot in the mulch

or on what remains

                                of hope

By: Ricardo M de Ungria (M’mry Wire, 2013)

2.

Dinabaw

So how is it down south? I mean,

you know, what’s the situation down there?

Well, the sun still rises east and swears by

its old lanes in high heavens.

raining tumult the nights, earth drinks up,

the leaves shiny and clinging to the last drops

on nippy dawns. Looking pitiful like

refugees or tourists in the distance,

proud yet about tobe put everything down

and run off, the trees with boughs

sagging with the weigh of rambutans,

pomelos, mangoes. In Tugbok, bulbs of durians

sleep aloft their tall, stately trees, biding times

for their welcome impish explosions.

Chandeliers of mangosteens and

pyramids of santol crowd out

the spread of avocados and pineapples

in the fruit stands and sidewalks.

Ants hold Kadayawans all year round.

Here is mountain, here is sea.

Here the kind hand to strangers unworried

by reward. Here the laughter and coy smiles

of girls without guile, summery crisp and

fresh as the fabled waters of Dumoy.

The sky still lords the sky, and there

is no place without the gift of food and plenty.

People still die each day, some

Notoriously, their swift killers at large,

The grumblings thundered out

By dreaminess complicit with the stark

Perplexing air of garrisoned white sand beaches.

In the slow hours of understanding and accomplishment,

birds sing, restoring cheer and fermentations.

Here is the vague sense of faith leaped and kept ---

of love working out its knot of light among stars.

As though in the bountied house of the father, we

wake and heed the one word of the mother --- take!

 By: Ricardo M de Ungria (M’mry Wire, 2013)