Eileen Tabios

Advance Condolences on February 24, 2022

Advance condolences

To families of those who will be killed

Survivors will keep battling

But that’s no consolation

Advance condolences

To those who love those who will die

The Proscenium Evaporates

 —after “Who is Anastasiia Lenna? Former Miss Ukraine joins army against Russian troops,” WION Web Team, New Delhi, Feb. 27, 2022

I come from the Philippines

ranked fourth in the world

in producing Queens

for Miss Universe

(after the U.S., Venezuela

and Puerto Rico)—

a lowly statistic

elevated in a country

that needs distraction

from political corruption

and poverty—where 

the diaspora must accommodate

what a motherland cannot

give to its own people.

When "people want to be around 

someone because they’re pretty…

It’s like picking your breakfast cereals 

based on color instead of taste.” 

—John Green

Kapwa* notes the interconnection

of all matters, like beauty pageants

with political corruption

and poverty—both birthing

a diaspora to accommodate

what a motherland cannot

give to its own people.

When Miss Ukraine

Anastasia Lenna

traded a sash for an Ak-74,

high heels for combat boots,

mascara for shooting visors,

nail polish for black gloves,

and a sequined evening gown

for a black tactical vest,

I suddenly appreciated the grand

stages where death only

occurs metaphorically

to those whose losses

become a bouquet of roses

and an oversized crown

whose fake diamonds

cannot symbolize 

the infinity of stars 

with some dying there

and some birthed anew 

With War as the Father

and Love as the Mother

Beauty exacts its price

 ___________________

* “Kapwa” is a Filipino indigenous trait on seeing the self in the other to posit the interconnection of all creatures across all of time