Bathala, now we must see how to wind our griefs
into a pullover whose sheen reminds us of days
and nights of rain: long months when we huddled
in one room, tending each other in the remoteness
of your silence. Now we must remember where to find
clumps of fiddlehead fern and collect
unbroken soda bottles that aren't stuffed
with gunpowder and twists of rope. In the street,
there might be stray grains that couldn't be swept up
after the farmers' wives stormed the warehouse,
asking for their due. There might be feathers
fallen from the bodies of birds after the blast.
Bathala, the children and mothers gather them up
in their skirts and pockets and add them
to their archives: all must be accounted for.
We would expect no less, ourselves.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.