FAMINE

FAMINE 

…kapirasong guhit ng buwan,/kay layong anino ng haplos. (Translation: that sliver-stroke of moon, / its distant illusion of a caress. ) --- Panalangin (Prayer) by Luisa A. Igloria, Via Negative, 09-18-11

Lakay Tuangan*  looks away from the terraces

after a deep gulp of rice wine, shakes his head

weakly, and lets out a quiet cry: O watch over us,

God of good harvests, Apu Init, Apu Angin,* Father

of these mountains that feed our children, hold us

now in your hands, big winds have taken our grains. 

Wrinkled beyond his years, he stretches his sunburnt

back after picking up his yawning bamboo basket

still empty but for half a root of wild potato sticking 

like an eye torn off from its socket. A beaten warrior.

Even the field rats have no use for the shorn stalks,

maybe the lumbering water buffalo pulled his final 

plow, it will have to do for the slaughter to gather

urgent sacrifice for the angered gods, whose anito*

may have absconded at the first blast of disaster. 

Subdued, he empties his earthen jug into his dry

throat, retches at the sting of the wine on its lines,

looks at the slice of moon, a smile from the sky 

that has darkened quickly to ferry a tent of stars,

a sliver-stroke of moon, a distant illusion of caress.

Shivering from the gust of wind, he folds his arms.

--- Albert B. Casuga

09-18-17

Translations: *Lakay Tuangan, Old man Tuangan;  Apu Init, Apu Angin, Sun Lord, Wind Lord; anito, angry soul, animus.