I recall this poem in Fighting Kite was written in MFA school in 1986 or 1987. I think this was probably in a workshop led by Yusef Komunyakaa, who was friendly to this kind of magical realist material. (Incidentally, there's an earlier blog post on this poem that would help to give a fuller picture of the specifics surrounding this poem.)
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Papa faced the devil again
on the stairs to the living room.
Seven years old, I couldn't sleep.
Papa shouting: "Make it now, damn you, end it here."
I saw clenched in his hand a buntot pagi,
the long tail severed from a sting ray,
the Filipino's traditional weapon against
spirits. Papa kept his on the living room wall,
and when neighbors would visit and talk
of his monthly standoffs with the devil,
he would take the buntot pagi down, let them
touch it. When I was over at my friends' houses,
I would hear people talk about Papa:
"So brave, that Mang Martin," they would say,
"Did you hear last night he took on the devil again?"
When my great-uncle Tay Birco died,
we prayed for nine days, a novena of dinners
and dancing. Late into the night,
the grown-ups told stories
of encounters with demons. Eyes glistening,
my grandfather Tatay described how when he was a boy,
church bells woke him one night. Peeping out
his window, he saw on the plaza facing San Antonio Church
a man in flames, dancing in red-hot
chains on the flagstone steps. Next day,
all the neighbors asked each other, "Did you see
that burning man?" then rapidly crossed themselves.
Tatay's mother, my great-grandmother,
once met a man in a hooded robe on the stairs
in her house as she left for morning mass.
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Page 16
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"Who are you?" she asked. "Can I help you?"
When he threw back the hood, his face was like
molten copper. She shrugged, walked on.
But that Ash Wednesday when I was seven, I recall
I stood rooted to the shadowy floor
of Papa's bedroom. Half-heard voices
downstairs, a glimmer of light wafted up.
I could see the tusks, its eyes like glowing
coals, as it climbed the steps. I could hear Papa
praying below: "oh jesus save us from the fires
of hell lead all souls to heaven help . . ."
I can still see its red eyes. I'm sure if I had
reached out, I could have touched spiny
hackles — it was that close. Gliding by,
the pig entered my dim bedroom.
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Page 17
Here's some of what I said about this poem in that 2009 blog post mentioned above:
I was born in the US but lived in the Philippines as a small child for some time. While there, I eventually realized that my father would periodically have visions of the Devil. And that in these encounters he would take the Devil on as his nemesis. It was also clear to me as a child (the poem says I'm seven) that people did not write Papa off as a lunatic. Instead they believed in these visitations and saw my father as a visionary man, tormented as well as honored by the Devil. . . . Filipinos customarily believe in such occult happenings and in fact treat them as everyday occurrences. The speaker's great-grandmother is not at all surprised at meeting the Devil in her house.
The speaker is also a participant in these Filipino beliefs. This speaker, in fact, is not a persona . . . it's really me.
Seeing the devil pig . . . that's an actual memory. I remember that distinctly. My father was downstairs with the Devil, shouting at him. And then I saw the pig. It was dark. It lumbered right by me, very close, ignoring me. And then it went into the darkened door of my bedroom. Where it disappeared into blackness. I swear to God. This memory is one of the strongest, most vivid remembrances of my life.
Looking more at that previous blog post, I see that I mentioned my great-grandfather being a priest and then promised to tell more of that story later . . . which I never did, it looks like. My great-grandfather was a Catholic priest, Father Timoteo Gotera. His "wife" — common-law wife, I think, not legally married — was Martina Gasataya. (In the poem, she is the woman who sees the devil in her house.) I don't know all the details, but I imagine that Fr. Gotera's parishioners thought of Martina as, perhaps, the housekeeper in the rectory? Though they had four kids together, who all had the surname of Gotera, so people must have known and not thought of her as a servant; I understand that she came from a wealthy family. A Gasataya relative who is doing genealogy research thinks she may have found some other kids besides the four I know about — my grandfather Felix and his three siblings, Encarnacion, Purita, and Joaquin (my two great-aunts and great-uncle).
As always, I'd love to get some feedback or discuss anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.
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