For her gnarled fingers,
it was never a question
of mere ornamentation,
but of a secret syllabary,
a language of ancient strength
that burned beyond tongues.
Frome where her hands
lashed together
these slender strands,
separate worlds are joined.
Once immersed in pools
of shattered colors,
the realm of sky
and all that soars
moonward meshes
with shadows
and all that stretches
from sunrise to sunset.
As the weaver-woman unmoors
the transformed binds,
her seer's hands already know
how these loose strands
shall come together:
ritual flesh to adorn ritual bone.
On the backloom of her mothers,
she is fashioning a blanket,
a smooth sea of blue string,
from which she hatches the Naga,
waterdragon of Maranao lore, to tread
stories amid her continued threading.
Pale as lightning skidding
over Mindanao's mountaintops,
the wingless dragon uncoils
itself past sigils of red circles,
stars and ferns, caught in the web
of this woven remembering.
She will make this Naga sing
of how the sea pummels the shores
with an arabesque of waves,
how the hooked wind compels
the trees to five times bow and pray
during the unveiled day.
From where her hand passes,
the dragon soundlessly swims,
the monotony of sea parting,
tiniest space between threads
opening and closing
like the agate of her eyes.
She has seen how this memorized
mazed holds time together,
and knows that, by the texture
of entwined years, it is no longer
a question of continuation,
but of blessed conclusion.
For in this sacred ordering
of lines, Maranao and Naga
are one: Weaver-woman
rooted in ageless journey,
serpent slowly charting
its way to the final sun.
(Written by Ruel S. De Vera. February 5, 1996. Philippines Graphic.)
