you don’t visit anymore

in faint smells of jasmine cast off the beat of black butterfly wings

the ancestors’ whispered greetings travel oceans to call us Home

we hang the Capiz shell Christmas lantern in the window

oversized wooden cutlery on the wall 

faux-jute rug across the lounge room floor

half-ornamental memorial of our past, half-cultural meme

reminders of who we could've been if Home made space for us

in absence, we mumble diasporic creole (imbibed through the space 

between The Filipino Channel teleseryes and the NSW English curriculum)

in longing, we write poetry about messages from the ancestors

in imitation, we make home on Stolen Country

mumbling excuses something something / finding place / making do, knowing 

that escaping one colonial project has implicated us in another

perhaps if we honour the seas, the forests – 

(self-placating through ritualistic repetitions under breath:

in the name of the father

purya buyag

tabi tabi po

in hopes that our spirits will vouch for us across the mycelial network)

          – we may be accepted by these Lands.

We dig our feet in the shoreline

the breeze carries Her laugh

don't worry Lola, we are okay. We will come Home.