Queendom

by Julienne Maui Castelo Mangawang

First published in Cordite on 1 February 2022. Click the arrow (>) to learn more about this piece

In a woman’s hands did I meet God branching into ancestors who sang beneath trees, sat among waterfalls, journeyed towards a mountain’s peak, and whispered a message to the wind. They asked her to visit a place her great-grandparents forgot in the ruin of rice fields and bamboo huts.

She saw stories in a pot of tomatoes finally in fruition, the first offering after generations of destruction – the beating of the flesh, a subduing by men who cultivated customs taken from different lands.

Women, she met, taught her how to be still. To break open in daylight. To tap into a reservoir of pain repressed by a dam of generations laid like stones. What life can she have when they are released?

One day, she will wake up to a child kissing her forehead, a stillness she has known in a garden revived, and a harvest to nourish descendants walking out of her. They will learn the message she brought out in poems.

Her hands would have collected more lines in climbing trees, soaking in rivers and waterfalls, and scaling mountains. She will close her eyes and meet ancestors in the cold:

Welcome home.

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Julienne Maui Castelo Mangawang is a soul experiencing life. She is studying for her MA in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines – Diliman. Her poems are in 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine Issue 50, The Rumpus’ ENOUGH section, Cordite Poetry Review Issue 104: KIN, The Rising Phoenix Review, Novice Magazine Issue 04 and other spaces. You may find her improving communication skills of professionals, connecting with plants, helping out at healing spaces, and raising the planet’s collective vibration. She enjoys chicken adobo with laurel leaves and love. Find her at https://linktr.ee/jmaui or t.hempressm on IG.

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