Rites Of May

MY ATTEMPT TO WRITE a children's story turned out to be a tad gory, but that's okay; Mindoro kids need to be freaked out to behave and go to sleep. This old story, a satire on how we respond by instinct to the unfamiliar, previously appeared in Mikrokosmos (sorry, I don't post unpublished stories), fiction then edited by lovely classmate Janet Peery. When Albie Goldbarth told us to bring our favorite poem to class, Janet brought in the same one I did: ''Fern Hill'' by Dylan Thomas, and she hasn't quite forgotten that. Reposting this short piece, in kaingin Rousseau, for the feast of San Isidro Labrador (May 15), the patron saint of farmers and laborers, and of proper Bansud, Oriental Mindoro. Credits go to Emil Nolde, Leonard Everett and Jean Lepautre for the woodcuts. Moral lesson from the story? Don't jump into a granary of mungbean seeds when playing hide-and-seek.

Kids with San Isidro Labrador on the pier in Bansud, Oriental Mindoro. Photo by Nonoy Millares

A Mangyan family  preparing dinner inside their hut with light from kerosene lamps. The women are removing peas from beans collected in the field, which will be used to make a tasty dinner. Photo and caption by Jacob Maentz