We Came so Far

Flipping through photos of my first trip to the Philippines

The igorrot catches my eye.

The getup seen as a gimmick to faded colonial whiplash

I was barely nine

when mothers eyes catches a photo opportunity.

A sigh released from my now matured mind

staring into a photo of Bagio city littered with picture perfect flowers in bloom.

Kamutig lost to chrysanthemums, marunguy to marigolds.

What land is there to farm for a man that lives free.

Soil paved over by asphalt and concrete

to build scenic homes for the rich and non resident.

A new world where free man are still slave to the peso

Selling trinkets and photo poses

all to feed a families that land can no longer provide for without documentation.

I shame myself at the mockery that man in the photo faces

when it is our people that lost our culture to the foreign sword

made in the image of an unholy cross.

Teenagers wear Rizal on there shirts

Not knowing Rizals ultimate intentions

Words of independence unmatched to his name

But the shirt maker acknowledges no Silang,

No Tinio, No Aginaldo, No Pilar,.......

Our peoples dream

We've come so far

In the wrong direction