By Gerald Galindez
Poetry

After the film Tinimbang Ka ngunit Kulang by Lino Brocka

She buried herself in scorched earth
And heard the voices from the sun
She let the voices into her
And welcomed everyone
She came across on every street
They called her by her name
Kuala! Kuala! Kuala! The insane

All day in her ramblings
Her laughter never ceasing
The church and his half-hallowed halls
Has heard her rattle ringing
In dusty pathways and hilly passes
Her thrones are always found
Scattered on the lonely hills
And cogon-covered mounds

Her locks are all adorned
With crawling things that bear—
12345678More crawling things that
12345678Kiss the skull and gnaw the open sores
Her skin reflects the light of day
She drinks on putrid springs
When into town she wears the gown
That gives her fancy wings

Her eyes, they don’t settle
Her tongue, it doesn’t stop
From singing a song
Of a more colored past
When Cesar her love
When they rolled on the hill
He kissed her with fire
That was so hard to kill
Then when on a tree
A fruit came to sight
Her Cesar dissevered the box of their child

And that’s where Kuala started to sing
Her sorrowful song in the heart of that hill
Where she buried herself in the foot of a tree
With a rattle in hand
In perpetual glee.