Cold Snap

Not snow but frost, says my friend the photographer, looking at slides of cabbage farms in La Trinidad: row after row speckled white, and in the distance a cluster of tin-roofed houses, an idling jeepney. Farmers shake their heads over penciled sums in dog-eared notepads: not enough to bring to market. In the next frame, the shocking brightness of carrots thicker than your wrist, baskets of purple yam; in another, a grandfather sitting on his haunches in the doorway, smoking his eternal cigar.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.