(for the victims of Typhoon “Ondoy”)
she is the wave that brought the curdling mud
and roiled the heaving seas of our grief,
but Deluge she is not, Deluge is not her name;
look closely, look closely at her face
and trace the wellspring of our tears;
ruins of houses and wreck of walls,
trunks and branches, electric poles across the way,
clothes, toys, wall boards, GI sheets, refrigerators,
computers, cars scattered like so much rubbish:
no, Deluge she is not, Deluge is not her name.
without warning, she came groaning and gnashing,
crushed and devoured whatever was in her way,
and in every crook and corner sowed fear.
look closely, look closely at her face
and trace the wellspring of our tears;
listen to the weeping, look at the corpses;
Deluge she is not, Deluge is not her name.
call her the merest piece of plastic
or tin can we cast into the current in the drain;
Deluge she is not, Deluge is not her name.
call her shopping mall or subdivision
that took over the space meant to be her channel;
call her garbage, the filthy garbage regurgitated
by the native and foreign manufacturing plant;
Deluge she is not, Deluge is not her name.
call her forest being stripped, denuded
by loggers residing in the Senate and Congress;
call her mountain being turned upside down
by companies with the blessings of the law;
Deluge she is not, Deluge is not her name.
look closely, look closely at her face
and trace the wellspring of our tears.
she is the nation’s wealth stolen and pocketed
by crooked and insatiable politicians;
and so let us call her Greed,
and so let us call her Neglect,
because Deluge she is not, Deluge is not her name.
(translation by Marne L. Kilates)