Our featured poet, Merlita Lorena Tariman, from Daraga, Albay, is described by the Albay Arts Foundation as “a trilingual poet, journalist, and advocate whose words transcend boundaries. Her work weaves together the threads of gender, environment, and the human condition, creating poetry that speaks to both the heart and the conscience.” Merlitz, as her friends call her, returns to her love of poetry, after the passing of her husband Pablo last year. Here’s a sampling of her recent works which she has posted on her FB page, from November 2025 to February 2026.
BIRDSONG BLUES
Sadness is a birdsong.
A language of whining
rising from the quietude
of some underbrush,
or from certain woodlands.
The blues that grabs you,
grips you hard and long,
and you grapple with it.
Not meaning to surrender
you keep listening, though.
Sad song--dark ode, bleak;
a sharp and piercing tune.
Sad song--definite, dreary;
at times, taunting, heavy.
A birdsong that persists
like a certain ancient sorrow.
(c) mmlt / 2026.02.01
(a pusiw in Tabaco, Albay, by James Biron, Wild Birds of Bicol )
TO BLOOM AND TO BE
To be held by the sun
in its piece of the sky
was what I desired.
To be hugged by the wind
in its moments of joy.
And by my mother
who is blessed by rain
in her distinctive land.
To bloom and be.
The journey will be long,
the storms will be harsh,
but to be the eternal bloom
perfect with thorns
was what excelling is for,
to be gracious
to unborn buds.
To bring growth
into the landscape
and down the border
to feed its need
for distinct peace.
(c) mmlt / 2026.01.20
(photo by Freepik)
HER FIRE
We live with her fire
we live with her coldness
Sometimes close to her clouds
at times closer to her rain
We are nourished by her water
that springs from her breast
We are fearful when she's enraged
But we know she is our abode
We love her in her silence
also in her sudden flare-ups
Her fire is the poetry we carry in our lips
also in our loins hot and heavy as her rocks
Some nights we stay up to listen to it crackle
Some days we breathe it like sweet wind
(c) mmlt / 2026.01.12
(photo of lava flow from Mayon Volcano by Nehemiah Manzanilla Sitiar)
RUTH'S TRUTH
I saw her unusual secret
under her clinched fist--
a clutch of sunshine
beaming through
the skin of her fingers.
Where did you find
that piece of the sun?
I asked.
She replied:
In my obedience
without privileges;
in my innocence,
which is like a bud's
before full blossoming,
which is no different
from the pure sweetness
of the bloom's nectar
untouched by
the maws of the bees.
Meanwhile, I drink my rain.
(c) mmlt / 2026.01.04
BAGONG TAON
Mananahimik ang mga kuwitis
Oras na tumagos ang silahis
Sa gahi ng lumang telon
Tatalilis na ang mga anino
Oras na biyakin natin ang umaga
Ilang parirala ang ihahatid
Ng maligamgam na halik ng hamog
At iwawaksi natin ang malas
Ng lumang salita sa iiwanang gabi
Panibagong wika ang ating babaybayin
Ibang kalendaryo na ang tatahakin
Upang humango ng bagong pagkakataon.
(c) mmlt / 31.12.2025
(image by Canva)
DEEP SHADOWS
At the foot of the old, amazing hill
is a tear of land we called home.
There, we had sweet rains, gentle breeze, and trees that gather dewdrops falling from the skies.
(The trees kept them dammed up in their hearts, until the rivers are ready to take them to the ocean.)
Then all of a sudden, grief happened.
The old hill found itself reshaped.
We became strangers to each other.
Now we hardly find our way home.
Even so, we keep our poetry memorable.
(c) mmlt / 2025.12.14
(image by Canva)
SOUNDS
All those tolling bells and rising decibels
This yellow November of the souls
And priest's homilies reprising the requiems
Celestial sounds echoing the songs of angels
They're breaking through the olden stone walls
But I cannot hear you anymore
In the corridors of the nearby graveyard
The lit candles before the silent niches
Clutch the reflections of the funeral-goers
Their tiny lights mimic the dance of the rain
(c) mmlt / 2025.11.20
(image by Canva)
The featured image is the coastline in San Ramon, Daldagon, Siruma, Camarines Sur. (photo by Kyna De Castro / Kyna’s Whereabouts)
About the poet
MERLITA LORENA-TARIMAN writes poetry in three languages: English, Filipino, and Bikol. Her works have appeared in various periodicals—Focus, Sunday Times magazine, Inquirer magazine, Woman Today, Filmag, Diyaryo Filipino, Philippine Free Press—and in three anthologies: Ang Silid na Mahiwaga by Soledad S.Reyes (1994), Hagkus by Paz Verdades M. Santos (2003), and Sagurong by Paz Verdades M. Santos and Kristian Sendon Cordero (2011). Her first Bikol-Filipino poetry collection, Pinatubo At Iba Pang Tula, was published in 2014, through a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
Her latest poetry collection, “Rainbow Chronicles and Other Poems,”published in 2024 by Gantala Press, is a testament to her mastery of metaphors and her ability to craft contemporary language into inspiring, thought-provoking art.
In the book’s foreword, Doods Santos wrote, “The poems that span more than fifty years reflect the voice of a generation now in its twilight, ever searching for home, one of her themes. While some poems will fuel exercises in close reading, Rainbows would be perfect for a literary history, based on the enduring as well as changing themes of the poems, to trace what has changed through the years based on society’s expectations, as recorded in this prism of reflections and experiences of a Bikol poet, wife and mother, the author of the poetry of her life.”