Ode to Mango Seed and Mouth

Joey Ayala is a multi-awarded singer-songwriter and poet who is popularly associated with the Davao-based group Joey Ayala at ang Bagong Lumad. That group launched what is now termed "altered-native" sensibility, plus a strongly messaged pro-environment agenda.

The author used the mango seed and the mouth as symbols. The mango seed represents the youth who are determined to be successful in the future. They are looked up to as the ones who will continue what the present elders are doing. Yet the mango seed can’t be transformed into a mango tree unless it undergoes a lot of challenges (symbolized by the mouth.)

Leslie Mae Rivero

Ode to mango seed and mouth

Joey Ayala

hairy gold, sweet even
after sucking, promise
remains even after flesh has turned
to flesh
voracious lover.

how to contain
that which bears
bark and all?
leaves to be,
capillary systems,
destiny within?
growth, taste,
itch down throat
written in subterranean
stars – soon to snag
in forks, boughs, along with sun
and climbing child.

pressed in upon,
alone with gravity and
all else, with rain and clouds
eternal universe

inscribed yet, mouth, unsatisfied,
unspent, seeks another,
and another, beneath
the bottom of hunger
for flesh – what can
grow from this?

self-consuming seed,
hairy mouth, in search
of golden bargains
to drapein salad robes
to dust
with dry seaweed
to ravage with deceptive lips
and scraping teeth,
tongue chasing nectar
down unshaven chin

where mango ends,
does mouth begin?

Source: http://www.geocities.com/icasocot/poem01.html