Ina Cariño: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

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When I Say Hello to the Oldest Apples

 

                                                            they tell me

a mountain is good for me. disowned by my papa,

I don’t reply—afraid of fathers, decades of dirt.

 

my cousins would sneer & slop me wet rice—

no mercy for a curse of daughters instead of sons.

a family tree scattered. spit in my tea.

 

maybe I am unloved because I want to deal

in the currency of ghosts—to traffic in such

precious things as broken rosaries, jars of ash.

 

when I ask for pardon as I trample knotted roots,

I nod to the spirit inside the wood: dwende, old

man of the mound who snatches bad children.

 

dirty one, you can’t walk here. I confess, I am

a dirty one. in dreams my claws rake the soil

of my mama’s garden as I search for fallen figs.

 

my brow ignores its lineage, tries to forget

centuries of grey-eyed Spaniards lurking

my veins, knocking the lumber of my heart.

 

when I say goodbye to manzanitas, boughs withering,

they tell me I’ll never forget them, that I’ll never

find fruit as familiar as their berries at their ripest.

 

I climb these trees, but in dark churches, hot wax

drips my knob-knees, sweat skimming the velvet

back of my neck. I can’t let go of what I think

 

is still mine—bloodlines flooding the slopes

of the Cordillera, silver in the hills—pine sap

casing my teeth as I say hello to the oldest apples.

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Originally from Baguio City in the Philippines, Ina Cariño is a 2022 Whiting Award winner for poetry. Their work appears in the American Poetry Review, the Margins, Guernica, Poetry Northwest, Poetry Magazine, the Paris Review Daily, Waxwing, New England Review, and elsewhere. She is a Kundiman fellow and winner of the 2021 Alice James Award for Feast, published by Alice James Books in March 2023.   In 2019, Ina founded a poetry reading series called Indigena Collective, a platform that aims to center marginalized creatives in the NC community and beyond. 

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                                    Francisco de Goya, Duendecitos (Little Goblins), 1797--1799. Aquatint etching. Phoenix Art Museum.

Comments

[Alise Alousi]

Stunning poem.

[Bill Nevins]

"to traffic in such

precious things as broken rosaries, jars of ash."

Fierce true writing!

[Grace Cavalieri]

Carino reminds us that our DNA carries the suffering of our ancestors--but to turn it into beautiful poetry may be worth it.

[Don Berger]

I've never read a poem like this--extraordinary, and to think it's autobiographical, where a writer might fall victim to formulaic trappings. It's a brand new, electric way of accounting for someone's own life. What language, song! Packed with original ways of looking at one's own life. So glad you picked this Terence. Ina, you're a wornderful poet!

[Terence Winch]

Don: thank you! Glad you like it.

[lally]

excellent choice terence, brilliant poem

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Michael.

[Phyllis Rosenzweig]

"a dirty one." Very moving. Thank you.

[clarida harriss]

I am already eclipsed by this poem. I await the Almost Total here in Bmore, but this poem is every bit as memorable. Also, Terence, perhaps you can tell me how to find out more about the extremely interesting art piece accompanying the poem. I am particularly struck by the Black face about to be unveiled by the grinning Thing.
Onward!
cl

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Clarinda. The image is Goya's take on the dwende (Duendecitos) mentioned in the poem. Scary goblinlike creatures. 

[Cindy Hochman]

Wow, what a heartbreaking, powerful, and haunting poems. It makes me want to go back and read these lines over and over. Thank you for baring your soul in this poem, Ina, and thanks for sharing it, Terence.

[Terence Winch]

Cindy: Nice to hear from you. Thanks for the comment!