On the darkest nights, some say a tree spirit takes off her wings to bathe in the forest lake, and her wings the hunter hides in the heart of mangrove thickets. No ancient forest spirit he is, but a man. In the wet earth, tracks like no other, and no scent. Because he is a hunter, he lures her to his village home. Because she is diwata, she feigns capture. For his every kill, the elders have marked his skin with glyphs resembling reptile scales, owls’ eyes, thunderbolts. Sunbursts and daggers along his arms’ sinews. And one day, perhaps today, to be inscribed where the rib cage opens, a circle broken, pointing upwards to its own center. Hanging from his earlobes, this same symbol, carved of carabao horn, washed in the animal’s blood.

The old ones say when he hides her wings, she sits upon a rock and weeps. He clothes her in a gown of tree bark. He warms her body with his own. He teaches her to weave dancing women, leaf storms, rice terraces into midnight colored cloth. The old ones say she uses human hair to bind mother of pearl shells to boars’ teeth, and human skulls to doorposts.

…Yes, hija, our people, once headhunters…

8.

I am the tree, and thinking me naked, he blankets me in a dress of my own skin. Upon my head, a wreath he’s weaved from the leaves and branches of my own crown. This death shroud for the living, though he believes himself to be kind-hearted in this gesture. His arms are sturdy from hewing down many of my kin, and his body smells of the animals whose lives he takes. I could flay him, and fashion a musky death shroud of his skin. But when he comes to me, mute, clothed in the scent of the dying, and seeking passage through my thickets—tell me, would you not also allow him entrance?

POLYGLOT INCANTATION

POLYGLOT INCANTATION

Siya ay nakatayo sa balikat ng bundok
She stands upon the mountain’s shoulders
Langit ay kulay ng ginto at dugo
Sky’s the color of gold and blood
Sumisigaw siya ¡Mira! ¡El sol!
See how the sun weeps
Tingnan mo! Umiiyak ang araw!
How this mountain slope burns
Nag-aapoy siya rin
Sky’s the color of black pearls
Iyan lagi ang sa aking panaginip
This have I prophesied
Ang mukha ng araw ay umiiyak

And what are these glyphs
Wikang matemátiká
Some human machinery
Símbólo, enkantada, o gayuma
Maker of souls and tongues
Anong pisi o balat ng ahas
What twine or serpent skin binds
Silangan at kanluran
Pearl of the Orient
Este punto del embarco
Fractured archipelago
Ang mga anak mo ay nakakalat
Your children have scattered
Cielo el color de perlas negras
Do not forget that they have names
May sariling pangalan ang aming diwata

HUMMINGBIRD DIWATA

HUMMINGBIRD DIWATA