Philippine Folklore

In the breathing dark of narra and molave,  

where moonlight spills like spilled tubâ,  

she combs her midnight hair with a broken shell

the kapre sits above, smoke curling from his cigar,  

watching mortal footsteps with ember eyes.  

Down by the bamboo’s whispering knees  

the tikbalang laughs through crooked teeth,  

leading the late traveler in spirals  

until the stars themselves grow dizzy  

and the path forgets its own name.  

Beneath the water’s glass-green skin  

the kataw waits with pearled breasts and silver voice,  

singing of shipwrecks that never happened,  

of lovers who still breathe under coral crowns  

half promise, half drowning.  

At dusk the manananggal unhinges,  

torso lifting like a dark kite,  

wings of veined night beating softly  

while her lower half stands patient  

guarding the empty skirt like a secret.  

And in the oldest houses, under the silong,  

the nuno sa punso dreams in moss and root,  

small grandfather curled inside the anthill heart 

step lightly, child,  

offer a whispered “tabi-tabi po”  

lest the earth itself grow offended.  

Yet when the wind turns kind  

and the fireflies remember their old duty,  

diwata drift down from balete branches,  

scattering sampaguita petals on the sleeping river,  

reminding even the lost  

that beauty and terror  

have always shared the same hammock  

under the same ancient moon.

Let the stories stay awake tonight  

they are still watching over us.