Consider to pocket this moist
Layer of loam: a cache of glass,
Ore, bones before the banyaga
Rattles the ground. The myth
Describes a gentry of anitos
Walked this very earth, sated
With salamanca. It should be
A given that we’ve sculpted
Enough idols in our mind
Palaces. The wind whistled
The riddle of how the fossils
Are not fossils, but decoys
For a gone display. Speak
Gently to presences for
They are distant heirs
Of such unearthly kingdoms
Left unseen to unbelievers
Who ease their sixth sense.
Granted, you lecture on levity:
Scaling a fifty foot tree, then,
From that fifty foot tree, to
Leap—alive from the crush.
After gaining spur, we shape
This school’s yard to revive
The glory it held once. I notice
None of the pupils. Rooms have
Molten as harsh riverbanks
Where birds, butterflies now
Swim underwater while fish
Slice through the ether.
I am convinced that your
Refusal can only bring me
To dissolution. Here we’re
Ash, dust, silt. We who aged
Years early. Here it’s sunshine
And starlight. You are holding
Your breath. Your face shifts
To a cast of marvel, and my
my heart wants what it wants.
Strand the sweating steps
Of hurting at home—they’re
Replaced by this rapture.
We’re here, the Distant Heirs.
We’re walking this very earth.
We’re not ruining synchrony.
This literary piece is part of Katitikan Issue 3: (Re) Imaginations.
John Rafael Alcantara 
Gilford Doquila