The Muruku Murmurations

Winding We started from examining how thick the thread is. We chose what color we desire. We went on for hours winding to make balls of thread. We also started from saying how excited we were this morning. It mattered what we had for breakfast or if we had breakfast at all. Then we wind another thread, talk about our lives. ‘How’s your boyfriend?’ ‘Are the children eating parya?’ ‘The sky is so blue!’ It is a hopeful day without the promise of rain. ‘I use to keep small cuts of thread in my mouth,’ auntie said. She would spat them at their backyard, after. Her grandmother saves the tiniest length of threads and ties them together. So it is not sayang. We wind to make balls of thread. When the day is about to be over we are winding still. Lest be known, today, our own lives took a rewind. Warping Leave the cotton for the old people to make pillows. Just crack the kapasanglay slowly, carefully or you won't have a nice boat. ...

So you also write a poem about the rain. Sketched on your skin an obvious memory of a kiss - your memory of travelling with her on a train. I am Here tracing the hair under your chin watching your eyes get moved by the blowing of the wind and the pattering of the rain. You are here. I am here. So is she with this rain. - Dumay

We've seen lakes together. We've walked along seashores. Together we gathered broken glass sanded by the calm waves. You poured me sake everytime I wanted a drink. From a distance I cared for your tired body after a long day of driving. Often I posed exaggerated gestures. You laugh at me comfortably. This was more than enough to bridge the language barrier between us. Each late night though, I hear your voice lowered while you talked over the phone. I suppose you are someone else's. Today I met her. Her smile is painful for me to see. My shoulders squared to greet her as I forced a laugh down my throat. I bowed my heads many times towards both of you while you stand a perfect match in front of my shaky toes. I travelled afar in your own country and seen kindness in peoples' faces. I console myself with this rare gift as I watch both your hands wave me goodbye. - Dumay

Kyoto Spring Sometimes it rains hard. Sometimes the sun makes us gay. Sometimes it snows soft. Camelia Come sniff what I saved. A dried camellia I picked from Izumo’s hills. Riceball Lesson We made sankaku -triangle onigiri. Oh! - labor for food! Cherry Petals Cherry petals swirl when the wind from the north blow. Some fell on my hair. Sunny Spring Cherry blossom’s branch fell down swiftly on the ground. Howling wind, welcome! Us On the gathered snow, How good to flow together. Like we are water. - Dumay

Nothing beats a broken heart. Perhaps broken glass panes can. The once disco bar, Batawa is now our dance studio. Today, as I am writing this, is the 16th of July. The studio has cracked walls. Perhaps not a remnant of the earthquake but of people’s soles that beat the floor so hard it broke the walls. Sometimes there are just pieces left behind: broken hollow blocks, crooked iron bars, rotting wood, shards of glass windows – that needs ordering. I always like to think that when there is earthquake the gods are dancing. Inside the studio the smell of Batawa still lingers: sweat, kisses, sex, and curses of miners, farmers, and all failed lovers. - Dumay

He was staring at you, sternly. His black hair, and blue eyes in those Asian eyelids, puzzled you. Was it your German friend who stayed around Asia for long? The one who lives in caves? Your memory of him is not enough to explain that stern, piercing look springing from those blue eyes. ‘My ojisan-ojisan has been guiding me all through-out my trip in Japan,’ I told you. You doubted my mythic sensibility. That night, when my great-great grandfather appeared to you with that stern, piercing look springing from those blue eyes in those Asian eyelids, you angered me. You displeased me from your not-so-careful handling of a lady. One of my aunts had those blue eyes. She has yellow fair skin, and black straight hair. She always wondered why she have those light blue eyes. Out of wonder I asked asked Apong, ‘Is it true, Apo Agadang’s father was Japanese?’ We forgot about him all the while. But thanks to my aunt’s blue Asian eyes. ‘Maybe we have the same ancestor,...

I kept it secret from my parents that I dreamed of three black pigs slaughtered along the mountain trails I was treading. I kept it secret from my parents that I did sangbo. We butchered three chickens and did the id-idew. We checked the bile and prayed that whatever omen that comes is good. My parents knew I missed two flights. They clasped their Bible and prayed for my safety to Jesus Christ. I kept it secret from my parents that I did the things they used to do then before I travel to baba for competitions - choose a good chicken, strike its wings, legs, and head with a hard stick til’ it dies, butcher it, check its bile, then pour its blood together with tapey on the earth. I kept these things from my parents. Because since they accepted their savior Jesus Christ, they kept a lot of things too. Like the kuli underneath our lababo. The earthen jar that used to contain fermenting rice is now a secret hiding place of cockroaches. - Dumay

Selamat Datang! Kuala Lumpur says and the city welcomes me with crows. They are black birds. I like to think of them as crows. They remind me of something as primal as death as they queue on the telephone lines at Pasar Seni. Crows eat everything including carcass of rice-field rats. This I’ve seen from the village where I was born. You said a mouse bit your toe while you are in India in one of its strange cities whose name I can’t recall. You said you don’t know what to do with the mouse and I wished you were a crow so you could eat the mouse. Did you know, my cousin learned to feed house mice? She owes her wisdom from our gone Lola: “Feed the mouse so they don’t bite you. And talk to them too.” Now, my cousin works abroad. She said the city she’s in is so clean. She’s been there for a year and she has not seen a mouse except Ratatoulie and Mickey Mouse. She cannot feed the television or the stuffed toy. At home, in the Philippines, and in India where you ...