Brown Skin & Brown Eyes (04/14/2004)

balangay, barangay, baranggay
any word variation has the same rotation of meaning
community
the river dwellers
formed their barangays with such fluidity that
nothing was concrete
nothing was established
nothing was palpable but the feeling of
the heat of the scorching sun in mid-march through april
then the cool, misty drop of the first rainfall at the beginning of monsoon season
but one thing was for certain, before the spanish came
before the exploitation ravished the many numbers of my people,
the strife for equality despite the so called perceived savagery
it was the spanish who planted the
deception and internalization of corrupt values into our native ancestors

called savages, indios, indians, monkeys whatsoever
denied of our rightful identity and our destiny
why hinder those from the path of progress because they're shades darker?
kayumanggi is the color of the ground humankind toiled
the same dirt God used to create Adam & Eve
the same dirt we all must return to as we move on to the next life
let's move on
together hand-in-hand, don't deny the fact that we're all the same
from the beginning to the end, and everything in between
yesterday

today i'm here but who am I? where did i come from, how did i get here?
born in the philippines but raised in hawai'i
now the seattle rain's falling on me
growing up i always knew of my identity of Spanish and Asian ancestry
but now i feel that i've always been an outsider of this place
and outsider of the place i call home, my culture
paano na ako? kung hindi na ako marunong mag-tagalog?
ilokano was the native tongue of my beloved parents and tagalog was mine
10 years here and i've already forgotten
those beautiful words of my childhood and innocence
those words that stir the romantic in me
(play your guitar for me and sing me a harana)

the more we grow, the less we are to the ground
the closer i am to the stars, the less i feel the earth underneath my feet
i've stretched too high that i'm barely standing
tip-toed on a single mass of land bordering the Pacific
never settling for less, always for the best but i haven't settled yet
not even at all
always changing, always among the swaying leaves in a breeze
always caught in the ocean's current as it sweeps me off away

i fulfill what those beautiful words really meant
barangay
named after the boat, the river dwellers were drifters, untied to the land
always caught in the current as the river rushes to sea
always an outsider for the lack of security
what home i have is not the place i reside
but in the hearts of the people who i love and loves me the most