What We Can Do With Our Hands: Collages and Poems
Hanggang Sa Muli
We see our dead everywhere. A butterfly, a bat—Lola? Dad? Is that you? Just today, I saw my father in the long finger of an okra, overgrown past peak deliciousness. It waggled at me— naku, not even good for deep-frying!— and reminded: tingnan mo! Always look close at your garden, at your hands, at the layers of dust and corner cobwebs gathered in the spaces you pass each day—there! I am there, I am here. Always beside you. Always swirling around you, inside you. Only one breath away.
Little One
for L— little ant little blade, little blueberry bunso little cat little dawn, little dark-haired diwa little ear of little corn little frigate, little fawn little girl little house little ilaw (little ikaw) little jujube, little journey little kilay, little kubo little lumpia little monster little night little opera, little ocean little phrase, little prairie little quiet little rabbit little starlight, little shout little tilt, little trace little universe, little underground little verve, little volta little witch, little wonder, little wren little x little yodel, little yonder little zoetrope, little zen
Stereograph: After a Typhoon - Wherever the Roof Lands, There the Filipino Makes His Home, 1912
All they can see through their little boxes:
home, removed twice. Indio. Filipino.
Double-double. Any fool knows a roof
intact is no miracle, but a blessing of
design. What do they know of God’s
Eye? The blink of mercy between rain
bands of disaster? These ‘kano don’t
know anything about real rain nor real
need to recreate. We know you don’t
pour a foundation in cement, but in the
ability to reconstruct quickly, to move
by choice. We know the importance of
elevation, how to avoid floods and allow
snakes their own homes outside of ours.
Bubong. Silid. Silong. A music in the
common sense of our homes. We know
the land always provides—kawayan,
nipa, kahoy, dahoon—whatever we need
to rebuild again and again and again and
again and again and again and again and
again and again and again and again and
again
Michelle Peñaloza is the author of Former Possessions of the Spanish Empire, winner of the 2018 Hillary Gravendyk National Poetry Prize (Inlandia Books, 2019). She is also the author of landscape/heartbreak (Two Sylvias, 2015) and the recipient of fellowships and awards from the University of Oregon and Kundiman. Michelle has also received support from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Loghaven, Willapa Bay AIR, Caldera, 4Culture, Artist Trust, PAWA (Philippine American Writers and Artists), Literary Arts, VONA/Voices, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, among others. The proud daughter of Filipino immigrants, Michelle was born in the suburbs of Detroit, MI and raised in Nashville, TN. She lives in rural Northern California. You can read more about Michelle Peñaloza's collage process here in BR.
