She arrives
quietly as morning,
a fragrance of rice fields,
green and tender,
gently pounded
by patient hands
until she surrenders
to sweetness,
to becoming.
Her laughter
crackles softly
like grains pressed thin—
delicate, crisp,
and new as childhood.
I taste her joy
slowly dissolving
on the tongue,
savoring each flake
like whispered secrets
and answered prayers.
She is Pinipig,
delicacy,
ancient blessing,
scented innocence,
God breathing gently
into the palm of her hand,
shaping grace into
soft, yielding rice,
her being a feast
served humbly,
an offering
of love
I long
to taste,
to cherish.
She speaks in syllables
that shimmer
like moonlight poured
over a silken lake;
I drink her words,
rich wine
that intoxicates
my senses,
each phrase
a sacred communion,
holy and warm,
her poetry pressed
into my soul.
In the language of
her quiet eyes,
I see God,
unveiled and smiling,
woven gently
through the texture
of her skin,
radiating from
the corners of her
softened heart,
living diary,
written in tenderness,
peacefully inscribed.
Pinipig—
She is more than delicacy,
she is revelation,
beauty released
from husk and shell,
a rhythm
forever unfolding
on my palate,
in my spirit,
and deep within
the sanctuary
of grace.
She is-
She holds the grains in her hands,
tender, plump with the breath of the fields,
the song of the sun still warm in their bellies.
She knows the timing,
the weight of waiting,
the hush before the pounding.
She spreads them like little offerings,
a thousand tiny moons before they are crushed into stars,
flattened into slivers of gold,
light as whispers, crisp as the first laugh of childhood.
Oh, how they sing when heat kisses them—
how they crackle and curl in the pan,
turning the color of dawn,
soft green to gold,
innocence to sweetness.
She presses them to lips,
lets them melt into her tongue,
the taste of afternoons spent in grandmother's arms,
the sound of mortar meeting pestle,
of wind combing through rice stalks,
of laughter skipping across a kitchen's quiet warmth.
Pinipig, pinipig—
not just rice, not just food,
but memory, but home, but God in a handful of flakes.
She pours herself out like coconut milk,
soft and thick, heavy with love,
spooning sweetness over the waiting grains,
watching them soak in all that grace.
She knows that to be loved is to be softened,
to be broken is to be remade,
to be crushed is not to be ruined,
but to become something finer,
something sweeter,
something that lingers on the tongue
long after the last bite.
Let me sip slowly
from the secrets you've penned;
each page trembling softly,
spilling of you—
until I'm intoxicated
by truths only hearts
dare to touch.
