Red Side Up

The ground trembles with the ancient fury of my ancestors

All fire and magma

Scorched earth sepulchre

Cleansing these fragmented soils with a reason for us to unify for once

How we have forgotten the taste of salty channels and canals coursing through our native blood

We have forgotten how our Lolo's Lolos fought with blades and yo-yos for a time that we could consider ourselves free

Able to enjoy the fish and fruits of our paradise in peace

Raped and ravaged by our first Christian king

Cleansing the "savage" from our culture

Disregarding the scholars who surrendered with raised hands

Weapons which spout fire across our lands

Open rice paddy fields where no trench is deep enough to hide,

But deep enough to be buried

Christened by a man of greed with a name our people can hardly even say

Well, they can mask a conquest under the Word of God

Spoken by a man proclaiming that we need to be saved

We knew only of chains before they even gave us a name

Still we smile, proudly Pinoy..

One God watches seven thousand six hundred islands bleed into the Pacific

One God listens to eighty thousand footsteps

From Bataan through Pampanga

Where our human rights were forfeited in a march to the death

For our American allies' benefit

God forbid, we must keep bloodshed off their pretty pristine land of the free

After bombs dropped over Nagasake,

US Troops sent relief to our devastated enemies

Yet left their Filipino brothers to rot away on their destroyed plots under the guise of foreign policies

Here I am, first generation

I do not even recognize my native tongue

Illocos Norte, Bicol, Romblon

These are places I have yet to explore

Perhaps because our stories have too long been ignored

Unearthed once more in the fury of our mother earth scorned