Women descended from birds
by Patria Rivera

Maria. Petra. Nicasia. Pascuala. Maxima. Aurelia. Ursula.

Aves: The surname of the dead.

Seven sisters, the seven stars of the skies,

all descended from the birds—

the mayas, the crows, the sparrows of Penaranda.

They farmed along burnt hills,

panned gold dust from brooks and streams,

waited for monsoon rains to fill the rice paddies.

In summer they scoured clams and shrimps from the riverbed,

dug mudfish from abandoned wells,

picked betel nuts and ikmo leaves twining round palm trees,

broiled locusts for supper,

gathered ripe duhat, green mangoes and sineguelas

from ancestral orchards.

In May before the harvest, they threaded sampaguita

and ylang-ylang, flower-of-flower, into boughs and garlands

for the Virgen de los Remedios.

Each tore a hundred petals of exultation,

prayed for good husbands.

What they made of their lives—

the odds and hopes of their existence, the long histories

of their wifely devotions – they had no time to speak of this.

You take what you will, they said:

the shadows and the light, the presence in the absence.


© Patria Rivera