The Language of the Rain Tree
Errol Merquita

Its canopy dances with the Bagobo
singing to the dragonflies and alimukon. 

Its root speaks to wells and aquifer
that hold secrets of the groundwater. 

Its branches shelter the salaginto and cicadas,
that hold secrets of the weather. 

The motions of the heart,
the answers to someone’s riddle,
the equations of hope and waiting 

were carved on its wide trunk
like a book unfolding a story.  

The last time I hugged a rain tree
was after a Datu forewarned of its fate,

that too much light wilts the leaves,
too much water blows the root,
too much wind breaks the branches. 

But what obliterates the rain tree,
and the memory of its language, 

is when we lose ourselves.