The Compulsion To Settle For Simplicity.... Poem by RIC BASTASA

there is no denying that as a native
i think like a native

am no Englishman from
London Bridge
but a Bisayan from
Mindanao,

as such, i have no choice
but just to be myself,
in the utter simplicity of my language
translating myself
word by word in the nuances of
your Anglo-American world,

there is this attempt to be a part of
your world

did they say that Enlightenment?
that Genius of ideas
is only possible in your world
and not in the
land of my ancestors who know
nothing but only about spices and
spears and arrows and
jugs of wine and tattoos and
barbaric songs?

let me say what i want to say
in a few vocabularies
you may not listen, but at least
i have spoken.

I am thus compelled for that
simplicity that allows me to write this way.

Because i have nothing more
to offer you

Because what i have is only this
insistence to open my heart
and speak
what little love is still
left in there.