Balisang (I)
When I reached fourteen years
My father gave me a knife.
"This is a balisang," he said,
As the blade flipped out of the handle,
Startling me,
Knife out, knife in,
Out
In
"Just like the one I carried
When I was your age."
Blades are in my blood.
My Uncle Jesse,
A knife-fighting hell-raiser in his day,
Now raises roosters
To cut and be cut in proxy.
My Nana
Used to throw cleavers at the wall
When the kids got out of line,
And still debones chicken
With a savage efficiency.
My parents have
Daggers in the study
Swords in the family room
A whetstone in the bedroom
And a kitchen like a cutlery shop.
"This is a balisang," Dad said.
In my hand
The blade flops this way
Flaps that way
Knife in, out,
It is not always easy, or safe,
To carry my father's balisang
But it is all that I have.
rik panganiban
february 1994
My father gave me a knife.
"This is a balisang," he said,
As the blade flipped out of the handle,
Startling me,
Knife out, knife in,
Out
In
"Just like the one I carried
When I was your age."
Blades are in my blood.
My Uncle Jesse,
A knife-fighting hell-raiser in his day,
Now raises roosters
To cut and be cut in proxy.
My Nana
Used to throw cleavers at the wall
When the kids got out of line,
And still debones chicken
With a savage efficiency.
My parents have
Daggers in the study
Swords in the family room
A whetstone in the bedroom
And a kitchen like a cutlery shop.
"This is a balisang," Dad said.
In my hand
The blade flops this way
Flaps that way
Knife in, out,
It is not always easy, or safe,
To carry my father's balisang
But it is all that I have.
rik panganiban
february 1994
