I think of the whiteness of snow <br />on a postcard from an immigrant aunt. <br />How sweet, how pure <br />and unreal like props <br />in a high-school play. <br />The closest I have seen of it is <br />crushed ice on halo-halo. <br />Why do I end up speaking <br />of white things? <br />I feel blond - <br />bleached and painted over. <br />But this is how I speak: <br />misted over with a foreign flavor <br />but in essence a native blend <br />of brown and yellow. <br />I think of how you must have <br />shivered in the European snow, <br />words warm in your heart. <br />I wonder if you dreamt <br />in Spanish. <br />Perhaps we dreamt <br />the same dream, <br />our incandescent souls <br />glowing beneath <br />the translucent veils <br />of tongues-to-suit-our-needs. <br />We were born in a land <br />of two seasons, not four, <br />unused to and awed by <br />words like: <br />autumn, winter, spring. <br />I think of snow and <br />how it melts into a <br />gray-tinged slush, <br />how these words of ours <br />will melt with the heat <br />of what we really mean. <br />But I think we wear <br />our costumes well. <br />If it is cold <br />we have to put <br />our coats on <br />but it will always be <br />with our skins <br />that we feel. <br /> <br />1996<br /><br />Justine Camacho Tajonera<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-filipino-writer-of-english-poems-to-a-filipino-writer-of-spanish-poems/
