Variations on Prayer and the Color Brown, and: Post Diaspora

Variations on Prayer and the Color Brown

My mother sends emailstelling me to be happy and grateful,reminding me of the day's saint, instructing meto pray the rosary and how to.There are differing viewson origin and history—did the Virgin Mary give Saint Dominica strand of beads in a vision?Or did people simply make a wayto count their prayers?

*

My lola had visionsof Saint Anthony of Padua—patron saint of lost items and souls;of native peoples, amputees, animals,of barrenness, of Brazil and Cebu;patron saint of counterrevolutionariesand the elderly,of fishermen, of harvests and horses,of poor and oppressed peoples; of Portugaland pregnancy; patron saint of shipwrecks,starvation, swineherds, travelers, and runts—he, appeared to my lola in the midst of her prayers.His arrival shook the nipa roof. In his benevolentpresence, my lola pled for Saint Anthony to savemy Tito Ubing from the illness which the doctor (they could not afford) could neither name nor cure.She placed cold towels on her son's headwhile she praised Saint Anthony for his sermonto the fish in Rimini—a multitude in peaceful, perfect orderrose up, smallest to largest, lifting their heads out of the waterto gaze upon his face. Lola praised Saint Anthonyfor converting the heretics of Rimini with the miracleof penitent fish and called on him—Doctor of the Church,fish-whisperer, heretic-hammer, bearer of brown habitand three-knotted cord, Anthony of Padua—to save her son.And he did. And my lola, my beautiful lola, whose skinsang against fabrics of coral and pink and cerulean andruby and jade and chartreuse and indigo and goldpledged to renounce all color for the rest of her life,to demonstrate her devotion. This was alwaysmy mother's answer when I asked her:Ma, why does Lola only ever wear brown?

*

Variants of Brown, according to Wikipedia:AMBER, BEAVER, BEIGE, BRONZE, BUFF,BURGUNDY, BURNT SIENNA, CAMEL, CHESTNUT,CHOCOLATE, COFFEE, COCOA BROWN, COPPER,COYOTE, DESERT SAND, ECRU, FALLOW, FAWN,FIELD DRAB, KHAKI, LION, LIVER, MAHAGONY,RAW UMBER, RUSSET, RUST, SAND, SEAL BROWN,SEPIA, SIENNA, SMOKEY TOPAZ, TAN, TAUPE,TAWNY, UMBER, WENGE, WHEAT.

*

When I was born, my lola could not believehow dark I was, how dark brown—parangitim!—almost black, she supposedly said.Even in her love, what she spoke was her fear,that darkness would mar me, that likeness to blackness was a matter of concern, enough forexclamation and, later, prayer. She gave mean ironic (or hopeful?) nickname:Mochiko, after the sweet white rice flourshe used to make palitaw, housed in a thin, white box,marked by a single blue star and red writing.

*

If look at my hands, my arms, my face in the mirror—I might name my hue SAND in the fall,CAMEL or LION in the winter,COPPER to SEPIA in spring,SEAL BROWN in summer.

*

Lola long dead, I still enter her old roomand find her rosary made from pressed rose petals.I cradle it in my palms, perfumingmy hands with her prayers.I don't pray. I just wonderat the fragrance a brown bead can hold,how many petals it took, how many roses,to make just one bead.

Post Diaspora

Elsewhere, butterflies mean somethingI cannot remember—luck or lifeor death or maybe it depends onwhere the fluttering wings appear.How exhausting (or dangerous)to forget always what means what where. How do you say butterfly?Alitaptap? Tutubi? Or is thatdragonfly? Or lighting bug?How do you say I'm sorry or I miss youor I don't know how not to forget?

*

Today's wonder: a river that beginsstraight up from the ground as iffrom nowhere. The trees around it ask—but, where were you born?Ultimately, which means more?The seed's first wink? Or the root's first tiptoe?Parents speak of before: when you were buta twinkle in...