Women in Action 1991-1 From Rome to Manila: Strengthening Networking and South-South Dialogues

By Merlinasa C. Bobis

"in the mornings, mayon volcano renders you dumb."
— abikolano

daragang magayon, on this half-light, you stun me.
you repeat a perfect crest, a once-upheaval caught at its height.
framed against the sky, a breast heaved and held
with no letting go of breath, your quiet fury of all ages.
ay, you stretch my eye to your peak
as you would pull my visions sky-high;
you strain me to be bird this early morning —
how you strain me, i almost hear me growing wings.

down here, your immense sweep of bluish-grey-green
becomes briefest in my wonder — thousands of feet i fly in a handspan,
in one sharp intake of breath when everything is fast yet still,
i shall know you.

that bluish-grey-green shall loom
a deeper green — trees, leaves, grass, and dew on its cheek.
i shall know you more than breast stunning me to a flash of wing.

the day moves, and you are capped with clouds i firmly elbow out.
i monster-green — because i wish you clearest,
more personal as a lump in the throat
full as this morning i cannot even gulp —
is this how to choke in too much beauty that splinters the eye?
you lift me aching, up there, a spreading sense of earthlessness
with too much earth!
you stun me bird startled into possibility of flight,

like knowing its name for the first time.

i soar, lifted — jolted!

but why, up here, you are strangest crest?
hacked by the madness of winds.
why, up close, you stun me more?
i smart with your deep ravines,
your sharp cliffs, your roughest grooves.
are you not perfect breast or crest of wave?
no flaw? no lack?
something vicious about a wounded mountain,
a breast that suckled monster teeth —
your name unclasps from memory,
i do not know you ravaged to the foot.

i can not love you with no name. lovers are better nameless.

it is enough to suckle sky, or be skirt spread
unending lawn for all feet — billowing, seeking all corners,
willing thoroughness for your walking's sake;
ever earth warming with every surge
of breast holding up heights for you.
a, i am beautiful and clear
only for those below whose hofpeless slumbers
have been greened, because i have pulled sky-high;
all chance-birds waiting for first-time flights, all of you.

but up here, you can not know me as fullest crest or breast,
as roost for all fliers, rest for tired wings —
you deny me, shun me, because i am wounded,
do not fret, my wounds wilt not wound you.

i have promised all a tenderness.
so rest your youth on mc, and i will sing you
till you come of age, then set you down,
having learned to be human, to wing without wings,
because the sky up here and the earth below
have already loved in the spirit's depth.
so gather all my wounds in your eyes.
do not blink; do not shrink from the tremor of lids.
my wounds are not far from the reddish grooves
running the whiteness of your eyes.
we are no different —

up here, you shall know me in the years you dreamt,
those tossing of days that desired to rise,
in the hit-beat of each minutethat deepened gashes into grooves,
into wounds not mine alone.
do you not know they live in the tales
we brought to life together?
in the song we sang again and again — like this:

flight is song on four winds.
there, where my wounds cut dreams
of tall husbands and fat babies that never cry, because they do not die.
there, you sing with me.
i am queen, borne aloft and leafing in strong breakfast arms
of your every sunrise, just before coffee,
before the youngest splutters kisses on his hot, hot rice.
there i make perfect sunny sideups,
yellow of the sun, enough to make you warm all over till the night
when you prefer to love me and the moon.

flight is song on four winds, all gurgle and boo!
all baby-shricking at the bath!
there where i wonder, how smooth my womb after this noisy thing.
flight is song on four winds as i spread mc as lawn.
we picnic there, all our lives, me, alone with mankind
wounding with this desire — queueing for the arms
of mothers and wives.

green this talc in your memory, and find the lives of all who lived.
tomorrow, i will tell you a talc again, sing for us and sing us again
in every flight till queues are levelled into tracks;
and even as tracks, i will still sing you in the tall cogon grass
that clothe your earthsteps — cogon grass that barely stirs
even when winds wonder where you roost.

i will even still this breast from heaving, because i do not wish
to wake you — i will sing for you and sing you serenely,
because i do not wish to give away your tomb in my womb —
i only give it without asking, without wondering
why you are sleeping here, here in our conspiracy of dreams.

Merlinda C. Bobis is a member of Women Involved in Creating Cultural Alternatives, a feminist creative writers' group. She is the author of two poetry collections, Rituals and Flight is Song on Four Winds. She taught literature at De La Salle University in Manila before she went to Australia on a scholarship to pursue her doctorate in communication arts. The poems on this spread were interpreted in music, dance and voice at the Cultural Center of the Philippines on hAarch 1 and 2, 1991. The mixed media presentation was produced by the CCP Women's Desk and the Coordinating Center for Dance to mark Women's Month.