Nusantao

What is home but the sea,
embraced on every side by water—
brought to these islands long ago
on balangay, by seafaring hands.

Sons of the ocean,
daughters born of pearl and salt.
And yet how few of us know
what life is like at sea
or even the seashore.

Here along the Bonuan shore
the fisher folk pull the morning’s—
no, the day’s—
catch from the deep.

A circle of men and women
stir vegetables and broth for lunch,
feeding the twenty or so bodies
braced for labor.

Thick nylon ropes cinch their torsos;
a careless shift could cut their backs.
So they walk barefoot in the sand,
slippers hanging from a wooden stick
slung behind them like a charm.

Three hours at least—
pulling and pulling and pulling
under the unrelenting heat.
But the price is certain:
food for their families,
money to carry home.

And for people like me,
eyes tuned more to screens
than to the waters we came from—
we who descend from great seafarers—
this labor becomes a spectacle,
a site of astonishment,
a lesson in what we once knew.