2017 ISAAL LITERARY PIECES

KINDER

LOLA IS A STRANGE ONE (PRIMARY)

by MA. BLANCA BAUTISTA

Lola is a strange one. She isn’t old at all.

Well, she’s hunch-backed and she’s bony but,
 PRIMARY (GRADES 1-3)

Intermediate (Grades 4-6)

I Found Two Friends In An Ukay-Ukay
By MA. BLANCA BAUTISTA, 2012 Carlos Palanca winner

I found two friends in an ukay-ukay.

They were mine (I knew!) They were mine!

They were mine! From the crease on their cheeks,
to the chips on the blue,
Gosh, were they fine, and I could tell they were mine!

I clutched them close on the screaming highway.

I held steady their souls at every leap of the jeep.
I wiped them down from Sunday to Sunday,
And counted their pores in the weight of my sleep.

These friends, they’re twins. I was their third.

We three we went places where no one could go.
One day I told them of the Alps, and lo -
Through the smog of Quiapo there fell snow.

On Sundays, like wind, we’d follow the

Pasig Brown breath, the water,
thick churning ahead.
How we could have turned around at the bend,
But every time said, “To Binondo!” instead.

Then, as with most, the change was sudden.

Unbidden, it came, stealing in with the night.
My father’s bonus brought home a sight –
Boxes, and bags, and sweet sneakers in white!

The following morning, I hurried to rise,

Threw on my clothes, and a grin besides,
Tripped over my friends to get outside,
And whistled away, new sneaks in stride.
GRADE 7 or 8

Fruit Salad
by Jaime An Lim, a multiple Carlos Palanca Awardee

Newly recovered from a fever, my mother

Is back in the kitchen. Nurturer,
Nourisher, stoker of the hearth fires
Of our stomach, she is assembling
The ingredients of a simple fare, a fruit salad.
Crisp papaya cubes, not quite ripe, pale  green
Turning subtly orange and red at the edges.
Banana, creamy yellow, each round slice
Marked with a perfect star in the middle.
Diced ripe mango, nuggets, of the richest gold,
And macapuno, freshly scraped, in soft milky ribbons.
Then a handful of raisins, a sprinkling
Of nuts for contrast in taste and texture.
All gently mixed, folded, chilled.

It never ceases to amaze me, every time,

This magical act of hers, how in her quick
Sure hand the commonplace turns into something
Special, a nourishment of startling shapes, startling colors.
She seems happy now, though a week ago she was not.
It is all a matter of delicate balance.
You take life in all its various weathers,
In equal measure, happy and sad,
The way you eat a delicious fruit salad:
In spoonful after grateful spoonful,
The green with the golden, the soft with the hard

GRADE 9 or 10