Mary Grace Bertulfo

Advice for Visiting Relatives

Take a jeepney ride through the streets of Manila. Be reunited with lola (grandma), lolo (grandpa), and relatives who seem to know everything about you even though you’ve never met. Listen to a butiki, a gentle house lizard, chirping before bedtime. Visit an underwater field of sea stars. Know your family, and yourself, just a little bit better.

This is my in-progress poetry collection for children based on my first trip to Manila when I was thirteen. Here are a couple of samples to nibble on:

Jeepney

Oh jeepney! You are peace in action,
look at you all shinysilver-glitterysun!
Left behind by old American armies
and taken over,
picked up,
and transformed by Manila hands.
Like a hungry caterpillar
you exploded into a wild chrome butterfly.
People mover,
round lights and mounted wings
tiny prancing horses, roosters
painted rainbow stripes
racing down your hood,
statues of Mama Mary
on your dashboard.
Look at you go
bouncing on rutted roads
wheels rolling through
floodwaters after the rains.
Your name scrawled
Gemini, Aquarious, Pisces
paint on your silver roof.
To Makati, Quezon City, Caloocan.
Para! Para!
Stop!
And take me with you.

“Jeepney” by Mary Grace Bertulfo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

When you visit relatives,
they will feed you.
So, no matter how delicious,
try not to eat:
1 smoked milkfish fillet
1 adobong chicken drumstick
a cup of steamed jasmine rice
2 handfuls of letson
3 cups of pancit noodles
5 bowls of ampalaya
a hundred eggrolls
6 slices of letseplan
half the tub of purple ube ice cream
and cheese
without asking first,
“How many other relatives
are we visiting today?”

“Advice for Visiting Relatives” by Mary Grace Bertulfo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.