I ask about what falls away
I ask about what falls away.
I ask about where water sings.
Here is surplus of sun, ocean
of excess, remaindered song.
Whose hands wash this sky?
Who drains this sun against worry?
Whose mighty ache makes history?
This is where water drains,
where gardens grow against
worry, against the crisis of capital,
& capital knows nothing but the
veil hiding hand from profit. Here
is leftover rice. & the wild imaginary
of hunger. Here is a canal in
the crook of the earth. & here is
where water sings. & this, this
is water singing us elsewhere.
I ask about where water sings.
Here is surplus of sun, ocean
of excess, remaindered song.
Whose hands wash this sky?
Who drains this sun against worry?
Whose mighty ache makes history?
This is where water drains,
where gardens grow against
worry, against the crisis of capital,
& capital knows nothing but the
veil hiding hand from profit. Here
is leftover rice. & the wild imaginary
of hunger. Here is a canal in
the crook of the earth. & here is
where water sings. & this, this
is water singing us elsewhere.
Copyright © 2023 by Jason Magabo Perez. This poem first appeared in the virtual exhibition “Profits Enslave the World: Philip Vera Cruz, the Manong Generation, and the Migrant Laborer Experience” by Welga Archive/Bulosan Center for Filipinx Studies, Fall 2020. Used with permission of the author.