DELOTAVO’S DIASPORA

By Marne L. Kilates

1 They take good care of their luggage,

2 The contents and the bags.
3 The contents because those are what they are,
4 Including what they’ve left,
5 The bags, because those will take them places.

6 We do not see their eyes,

7 Not because they’ve turned their backs on us
8 But only because they must look ahead
9 And get where they’re going,
10 Or death would mock us, if they never left.

11 Beyond the glass panes of pre-departure

12 We follow them with our eyes.
13 They walk alone or in two’s,
14 Glad for the company, or they leave
15 As whole families, taking with them everything,

17 Roots, branches, memories,

18 If they have not abandoned them,
19 If indeed they had chosen to become
20 Their destinations. For then they will shed
21 Everything, luggage and all, and the past is a blur.

22 Ingat, be careful, we intone

23 As we send them off. We have never been
24 Where they are going, where time and life,
25 And even God, is different. They kiss our hands,
26 We give them rosaries, scapulars, anting-anting.

27 Between them and us, a widening

28 Gulf, no matter how we cling to memories
29 Like flotsam. For we do not know,
30 Or refuse to know who, between them and us,
31 Are the survivors of a wreck.

Source: http://2018.manilaspeak.com/cool/delotavos-diaspora