A Modest Dream Of Salt And Rice Poem by Erwin Maramat

With grease;

with grime;

with the toils of the day;

with hunger;

his shirt is stained,

worn it as if it were cathedral windows that depict the suffering of saints,

and as did they,

hands clasped together praying for a drip of vagrant light through the neglected crevices of clouds,

so promising days may come harvested when life begins to sprout.

Underneath the alluvion where salvation has slept;

through drought;

through famished swarms;

through undying season of despair;

may the fields wear again verdure and luster.

A child steals warmth from a lambent firelight beneath untamed skies

after a monsoon season

where dampen hopes are left to dry

on clotheslines.

Tatay and nanay longing to see a steam

from the ashen pots

resuscitated to life by the

blazing fire in the hearth,

this forsaken time has none to spare,

so we must lay our heads heavy with

starved dreams that grew from

our empty bellies,

for now we must savor nothingness;

for now we must take a whiff of the scent of earth.

Before time was plucked from the womb of the universe,

Bathala knows of our fate;

so we bow our heads.

We have no need for castles,

for we see them in the air,

while we lay on clay our makeshift beds.

We opt to neither lead a life of lies,

nor forage forbidden fruits in paradise;

all that we ask and praying may be granted:

a pinch of salt

to add flavor to our

cup of rice.

—Erwin D Maramat