In Ilocano

                                     ~ after Agha Shahid Ali


The tongues of bells in church towers, the tongues
of leathered moss on stone—my history as Ilocano.

On weekends, we read borrowed komiks on porch 
steps: graphic novels in vernacular, stories in Ilocano.

Liwayway means dawn, and so does bannawag:
first flush streaked like mango curry— An Ilocano

might see instead the sweetness of karabasa, pale ribbons
the color of new rice; dried, salted alchemies in Ilocano.

Call the hilot to oil a twisted ankle, beseech the baglan
to mediate with ancestor gods. Supplicatory, in Ilocano.

I'm still here. I'm always praying under my breath, though you
don't see. But I can't prophesy the future, intuitively or in Ilocano.

Back in the day a statue of Maria was carried from house to house.
Novenas for all the heart's hard causes, intoned in English and Ilocano.