Siquijor

By Elsa Cabello Martinez Coscolluela | 1 March 2018

Folks say they do not live there

Anymore, witches stitching

Rag figures of souls to slay,

Or warlocks brewing potions

Of bark and root three moons

Before Jesus-God lies cold

On a slab of stone.
They say they have grown weary

Of chanting the same old incantations,

Casting the same spells over loves

Lost or betrayed, claiming justice

For the helpless and oppressed,

Or setting our small worlds back

On their proper tilt and turn.
They say they have their own lives

To live, burdens to bear: fields

To till, seeds to sow, waterjars

To fill, and sons and daughters

To tend and teach mysteries

Of blood and bone, earth and sky,

Wind, water and fire.
Folks say when you first set foot

On the shores of Siquijor

That those you seek do not live

There anymore, but if you truly ache

For righteous remedy, you might linger

For a night: one might fly by

With a magic brew for you.

Author :



Elsa Cabello Martinez Coscolluela is the daughter Carmen Cabello Martinez from Tanjay City  , Negros Oriental. Her poems have received honours from the Don Carlos Palanca Awards, Cultural Center of the Philippines, and Philippines Free Press. They appeared in anthologies and collections such as Katipunera and Other Poems (1998). She is also well-known in the field of drama, having garnered more than twenty prizes from the Palanca Awards in that genre, and was instilled in the Palanca Hall of Fame in 1999. She held the position of Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod until her retirement in 2010, and was conferred the title of Professor Emeritus. She was one of the brains behind the founding of the Iyas National Writers Workshop, Kritika National Workshop on Art and Cultural Criticism, and Negros Summer Workshops on Theatre and Film.