Daybreak Another icy December morning perfect for lingering under the blankets infested with chicken fleas that crawl up the hardwood floor.
But my comrade wants to take me to the hilltop above his village and show off the new rice terraces he himself had engineered barely visible through the clouds hugging mountainsides in a silent shroud.
Seated on a slope above neatly thatched roofs he asks me to teach him the songs that he heard could shake the dust from the concrete walls of big cities whenever protesters fill the streets like water gushing through irrigation pipes.
Teach me, too, he pleads, your songs of love amidst struggle, I need the strength, you see, to push back raging sunsets away from the horizon's waiting mouth and make night never come.
Flawless is this morning. Silent now are the mortars that had pelted the mountainside on New Year's Eve just two nights back. Still now is the military checkpoint perched atop the opposite rise affording the wild hawks a rare celebration of sunrise together with our voices in this Kalinga* paradise.
I look down at the Chico River*, strip of emerald lace carelessly strewn by the wind to curl at the mountain's feet.
Kabsat*, I say, now it’s your turn. Sing to me your songs of morningrise. |