ARC OF OUR VOICE

Woman

Woman is daylight
Woman is God’s garden
Woman is rib of creation 
Woman is legend 
Woman is myth and miracle 
Woman is spring 
Woman is hope 
Woman is faith 
Woman is love 
Woman is fruit and seed
Woman is tenderness 
Woman is courage 
Woman is half the sky
Woman is vision
Woman is destiny
Woman is devotion
Woman is earth and wind 
Woman is water and fire 
Woman is breadth and width 
Woman is Isis and Saraswati 
Woman is grace
Woman is energy
Woman is passion
The wisdom of the womb 

Mother

Because she is fruit and seed. 
I, her daughter, am bud and
Blossom of her distinct word. 

Because she is clan and garden, 
She is my soil, range and fence, 
The circle and compass of my lines. 

Because she is essence and origin
She is vim of my roots and vigor of my skin,
She is wing and wind of my poems.

Because she is crux and mountain,
She is the reason for my seasons, 
The melody of my morning songs.

She is my theme and thought,
The speech I hear from the rain,
The whisper of faith when I’m lost.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Merlita Lorena Tariman
Merlita Lorena Tariman
Merlita Lorena Tariman writes poetry in three languages: English, Filipino, and Bikol. Some of her previous work appeared in various periodicals—Focus, Sunday Times magazine, Inquirer magazine, Woman Today, Filmag, Diyaryo Filipino—and in three anthologies: Ang Silid na Mahiwaga by Soledad S.Reyes (1994), Hagkus by Paz Verdades M. Santos (2003), and Sagurong by Paz Verdades M. Santos and Kristian Sendon Cordero (2011). Her first Bikol-Filipino poetry collection, Pinatubo At Iba Pang Tula, was published in 2014, through a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Most of her poems were published under two by-lines, M.M. Lorena Tariman and Merlita Lorena Tariman.

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