Things I love About the Philippines

I love the ringing voices of the half-feral children in provincial Malabugas.

I love the families that bind parent to child, brother to sister, cousin to cousin.

I love the elders receiving the respect they deserve.

I love the soft weight of freshly picked Philippine mangoes.

I love the sting of flavor delivered by a thumb-sized calamansi lime.

I love the city street cats and the curly-tailed dogs commanding the province.

I love the muscular fish, metallic and fresh from the sea.

I love the hum and crawl of the city forty stories below me in my tower.

I love riding tricycles in Bayawan.

I love the sea grasping at, but never claiming, the white sands on the beach.

I love the palm trees.

I love my island wife,

         and her girls

               and

everyone they hold near.

Rain in Malabugas (2024)

Fish at the Market

Catching a Tricycle in Bayawan

—Mitchell Hegman