New Season, New Digs

The awesome window in the new digs

 A couple of weeks ago, I was walking around Brooklyn with my poetry family and we were counting the number of times we had moved in our lives.  I counted 12 in the past 12 years (including 4 1/2 countries). 

As New York finds herself in the early days of her same-time-next-year romance with Autumn, I find myself in the early days of a new romance with an space that I could really love. And this space, I think it knows the kind of loving I need. It's bright and airy, with giant windows of blue sky and moon. Buzzing in the daytime and smooth at night, this space gets it so right.

I occupy myself and my spaces with newfound confidence as my focus and energy are clearer and fuller than ever before. I am strong in my body, in my heart and in my mind. I am blossoming with creativity and purpose.  

Could I be entering Act 3 in the story of Tish? Oh hell, yeah!

War Poem (August 23rd Revision)

Sadly this is a poem that continues to unravel, and those of us with voice and rage and open hearts must keep the story front and center. Stronger and stronger, our voices togeher.

There’s a war going on just underneath my skin

a quiet, harrowing war of the unspeakable

a war unsought. Never lost, never won.

A mole under my left eye, eternal tear

weeping for a flock of American soldiers

who killed all the husbands but spared my skin.

The space between my legs burns of

blunt blades, pointed fingers, savage laws of 

men in loin cloths, sacred robes and tailored suits. 

Under my knee, a gash from the weary fall of grandmothers

whose solider husbands marched to their deaths leaving

widows and orphans to see their liberation from the Japanese

Dynasties of fabric seeking the perfect lotus

feet bend my arches into breaking, making

each step excruciating.

On my left cheek, a disapproving brother’s signature

marked in acid, proud announcement to the world

little sister is a dirty girl not worthy of dowry.

Beneath my breasts, lungs damaged in the fall

down the well in the woods when fathers

wanted only Chinese baby boys.

A thousand bastard mongrel babies fathered by friars

cysts in my left ovary now severed by a doctor

marking forever the female parts of my childless body.

The cries trapped in the voiceless throats 

Of my kin forced into sex slavery in Syria

form a lump on my forearm, my wartime purple heart.

My left pinky finger bends at at point 

where the blade barely missed the lawbreaking 

painted nails offending Taliban sensibility.

In the dead of night, even today you still hear, “Magdalene, 

Asking for It, Virgin, Puta, Illegitimate Rape Victim,

Slut." There, just there. There's a war going on.

How Do You Show Up, and Why?

Mama and her first born.
(that would be me)

Being a first born has trained me to to be reliable, people know they can count on me to show up. From as early as I can remember, my parents instilled in me a sense of responsibility which has played a foundational role in the values that calibrate my journey.

I know this is not unique to first borns. We all show up to work, to meetings, to dates, to appointments, to commitments. This starts fairly early in life. We show up to breakfast, then we show up to school and if you're raised following any kind of religious practice you show up to services. There is a lot of showing up ingrained in our systems that we hardly even think about anymore. When my family calls on me, I show up to the best of my ability. It's something I am compelled to do, it comes from a deeply rooted sense of purpose and connectedness.

Me again, showing up as flower girl.

I have a distinct memory of how I learned to show up in my early days as a student. I am told that I started reading fairly early, so my parents decided that I was ready for pre-school at the age of 3. What they didn't count on was my emotional total unpreparedness. Apparently, mornings began as a wrestling match struggle involving tantrums and tears. This is now what I remember. What I remember is that my teacher made me the weather girl and it was my job to inform the class whether it was sunny, cloudy, rainy or stormy. Because of this, not only did I show up to my weather-girl duties, I also showed up and thoroughly enjoyed school.

Stepping into the spotlight,
showing up for me.

Over time, my reasons for showing up have been a combination of having to do things out of a more external sense of duty and a doing things out of a deeper sense of purpose. The different roles we play in life, the many callings we heed - they compel us in different ways. And as much as we show up for our job, our people, our promises - this is as much as we should show up for ourselves. What fights, causes and meanings do we have most heart for? What themes and topics get our fire going?

So I ask you what I often find myself asking myself: Are you showing up for you? Are you stepping into your own spotlight and heeding the calls that matter most to you?  And every time I find reasons not to, I remind myself of what it was like to grow up in the dictatorial 80's of the Philippines, surrounded by injustices beyond imagining. And I sound out the words spoken by a subversive nun of the 80's indie film, Sister Stella L. in all the languages of my heart: Kung hindi tayo ang kikilos, sino ang kikilos? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa? If not us, then who will move? If not now, when?


My friends, the stage is set. The audience is waiting. And your heart, it burns bright and beats strong. And your heart is beautiful. And every time you show up for you, you are beautiful.

The Sun Rises at 40

I think I get it now. I think I finally get what they mean when they say that life begins at 40. As a newbie forty-something, I have found myself revisiting life's bigger questions and callings. Like a planet on its course, I have come to the question about my purpose, about what lights up my heart and fills me with joy.  Having turned 40 a year and a half ago, I find myself face-to-face with the very questions that confronted me half of my lifetime ago.

And while I do not think that life actually begins at forty, I have come to see my turning forty as the sunrise in my life. Which is to say, I am going to a new vision of life for myself. The sunlight is only just beginning to come through, so I am seeing an urgency of heart more than a clear picture. I am remembering the things that matter most to me. I am remembering the kind of work that revs me up. And in this remembering, the picture of where I come from blurs with the picture of where I am going.

Poem 8/30: Your Are Not Five or Fifteen

To be a dog, or a grown up. Or to be

a penguin. Aiden, who is now five,

has this power. To dive in to 

an imagining so real, he becomes

the thing. He is angry at his mother

when he is forced to wear underpants.

Penguins don't wear underpants, Mama.

I told you, I am a penguin today.

He is your nephew, your heart, your moon.

And you are not five or fifteen. You are

not even twenty five, not by miles.

Now, you must dive in. 

To be forty one.

To be a woman, brown woman in

this land uncertain about its new skin.

Brown woman in this world 

the old man is unprepared to see.

What is the power that you hold 

in this new brown world?

Is it your sex? Is it your skin?  

Imagine a Sunday at its best. All

sunshine and blossoms. Imagine

all voices raised, all sights on high. 

Now imagine the pulsing. Your heart. 

Your heart.

7/30: Mama Warned You About Days Like This

You have grown weary of the words,

always the words. So many words, always

talking, always talking. Your mama warned

you about days like this, days when your 

quick with and piercing words would crush.

Only, she never told you they would crush

your own self. Your own heart. Your weary,

wordy heart. You have said enough. Too much.

You were weak. Over here, they call it 

vulnerable. Your heart calls it weak, your

heart knows you went too far. You

showed them where they can hurt you,

you let them in. You told them. Silly

girl, you said here, right here, come 

and touch me right here.  And now 

there is no phone, the internet is down, 

they are are nowhere to be found and 

all you have left is a sorry ditch 

you cannot talk your way out of.

April 6 Poem: How Things Work (6/30)

My father liked to point out

the mechanics of things.

On planes, we would always sit 

near the wings so we could watch

as the pilot maneuvered the

flaps, opening wide to create 

resistance the shutting them tight

for a smooth glide. In airports as

planes landed, we looked out

for the landing gear - those wheels

the pilot released just as the plane 

touched down.  When I was 

learning how to drive, he showed

me the car engine, made me see

how it moved as he hit the gas or 

shifted gears. He  made me 

change a tire, taught

me how to check the oil. 

The heart is an engine and a man is 

an engine and a father is an 

engine. My father showed me 

the mechanics of love. Most nights

till I was twelve, he would tuck

me and my sister in bed,

brush our hair out of our eyes,

kiss us on our foreheads.

I learned what tenderness 

looked like on the face of man

when my father kissed me

goodnight. And later, much 

later, my father taught me

forgiveness. When I broke his

heart, with my angst and my 

words. When he broke my

heart with his struggles

and failings. The heart,

the eyes, the tender eyes,

the forehead kisses. My father

taught me the mechanics of

love. He took me under the hood

so I would know. So I could see.