To hold this peace

For Nasudi Francine, for saying that she cannot hold her tears

To hold this alien peace

you know is to look out the window

of her seven year-old soul.

She is your daughter

born of summer rains you did not see

and the fierce storms you read

in the papers, their wrath

yours as well for having left your country

too soon and not lingering but raging past

ships and seas that were cold

to your leaving. 

You left her, this one-year old

in between saying yes and no

and now at seven she tells you,

Come home to sing your lullaby 

so I can watch you tone down

your throat with the music

of your exile's longing, 

that one longing

that I know as well. 

She tells you of a quick repartee

you cannot take to heart:

I do not understand why each time

I say goodbye, the phone line cracks

and a lighting strikes my voice

and a thunder grips my fear

and my tears I cannot help

but let them roll. 

You tell me to put down 

the receiver first, father,

in that daily ritual of saying hello

and then the words grow warm

and I cannot let you go. 

I cannot, father,

I cannot put down the receiver

first. You do.

My arms would lose

all the strength

my small fingers that almost 

do not remember you

would grow numb with the thought

of not knowing you so.

I do not have the memory

of your guttural Ilokano voice,

your R's rolled and unrolled

depending on your rage or 

which message of repeated

absences imprisons you so

as you write with those hands

that do not tire of words

many I never saw. 

You tell me to keep 

on with my fairy tale books,

visit the countries 

in the geographies of their hopes

and in the Disneyland of my mind

I forget you are months 

and miles away.

Each day you speak to me

I would make you promise, again

and again: for us to go cross-country

in our dreams even as I lay awake

waiting for your coming

back into our midst.

Such fatherly absence 

coming in the quick

but we try to understand

why children like us

in this republic manned 

by thieves

would have to let go

of fathers and mothers

before we go to sleep with our fears.

We pray to the guardian angel,

and they are more now:

Exorcize, exorcize 

o guardian angel,

the reasons for our grief

in this homeland of our sorrowful birth.

Bring back, bring back

our fathers and mothers 

and the poetry of our relief.

You look at the receiver

and its promise of a redeemer

and the words you send grow warmer

as they grow colder. 

A. Solver Agcaoili

Hon, HI/Jan 30/09