This dusk is unlike the others
Yes, the sun is setting just like before but this one is darker
I see your frail frame shaped by the gloom of the day
As you trudge slowly entering the gate, uncertain of your steps and feebler sway
Then there in the remaining light a spark my questioning eyes see
It reflects upon the bead of your tears like the salt of the sea
You are crying.
But my innocent mind of a child could not fathom the depths of your agony
Perched upon the window of ramshackled hut
my blurred vision of the dying light
Your tears falling upon the hardened ground
Soft sobs and muzzled rage
Why suffer the fate of the outcast
For being born in the lot of the peonage?
Countless nights saw you sew every thread of your life in each masterpiece
Numberless suns burned your eyes to the core of its balls for lack of sleep
Your sewing machine must have loved you much for the tender hugs that you spent with it
I see this dusk darker than before
You cry with the tears that only a God could dry
You cry .....
Not for the misfortune that you suffer
Not for jeers and taunts from those who have so much to share but would not
Not because of the unrewarded labor that you brought into your beautiful creations,
Adoring crowd in festivals unmindful of the blood and sweat that come with such masterpieces
In every sparkle of beads and sequins are the pearls of your tears
In every crimson fiber is the blood you shed in every pierce of the needle
You fill their empty hunger for beauty as you hunger for a penny
You fill their thirst for vanity as your soul is bared naked for depravity
I love that dress – they say!
Tonight we gather in empty table praying that hunger would go away
The night settles
And the sewing machine trudges on till another break of day.
- 24 April 2010 at the AIM, Makati, Philippines
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