Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot
Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot Poems
If Kabunian gave you a land of milk and honey
and ordered you to take care of it for posterity
What will you do if intruders want to take
it away?
...
When I was young, you’d hold my hand
We’d swim the seas, explore the land
When ghouls and trolls would visit me
I’d call your name and they would flee
...
Love expressed in stones
Of assorted colors
The sea-green jade
The blue chevron beads
...
The lights would not blink in the household of his class
Dreams were forbidden, slums plunged in deep shadow
The wide farmlands where staple corn and rice should grow
Were pools of blood from martyrs now and of time past
...
On this day, we remember the women and men
All too aware that death was their destiny certain
When in darkness and doom they scattered flames
A big number without faces, many without names
...
(For Fred as He Dreams on the Foot of the Alps)
He is mine in opaque spaces
unexplored by the public eye
...
I was always trapped in the center
like the rusty fulcrum of the see-saw,
never way up, never way down
'The rule is not to argue against them
...
Do not go there, my child; your train must not arrive
Nature has intended that mine should come ahead
Come back, my child, come back, your thick baggage unpack
You must work on the seams begun with your fine dreams
...
I told you often. Long ago I learned
Distance is not measured by the meters
Of space from one estate to another
Rather by the height of the fence
...
I can smell the raw tangy scent
of will drying in my hand
I see the shape of dreams
Escaping the bowels of the fields
...
Now that you’ve said goodbye, go!
The door is impatient for your exodus.
I am an arena of pandemonium-
...
The streets are a sea of revelry, of expectation
The drums beat a deep baritone which
hums in the ears long after it is gone
We rush and force our way into bodies
...
(to the People of Chittagong Hill Tracts,
Bangladesh)
We must be beyond our fears
...
They arrived bundled up in white cloths.
Or rather what used to be white cloths
now smeared with the hardened blood
of champions of righteousness,
...
She left him with a shattered heart
Her tortured tears held their own art
He never figured what they meant
Her sentiments she did not vent
...
They often sit in a café
Whose meager crowd is its lure
While the tea brews
and cream perfects its assault
...
Can your memory carry you to that spell
I was five and you were four, when outdoor
frolicking was first on our aspiration list?
Can your memory reconstruct our umbrage
...
(In Memoriam)
They fell. One by one, heroes fell
On their blood against cold, harsh stones
...
Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot Biography
Cheryl L. Daytec-Yañgot is a Filipino human rights lawyer and activist. A member of an indigenous cultural community, she is also very passionate about the rights of indigenous peoples. This is reflected in her poetry. She started writing at a very tender age, beginning with correspondences with missionaries and friends. She was the editor-in-chief of her high school paper. In college she was an editor of two campus papers and won various awards for literary works. Named one of the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines in 1999 for exemplary community involvement, activism and academic performance, she continues to search for justice and social equity. She believes that poetry has an indispensable role in societal transformation which has become her obsession. Her poems often deal with injustice and oppression, love and passion, and what she calls 'the enigma in between.' 'Words, spoken loudly by the throng, can put down an oppressive status quo, ' she says, as she encourages people to assert freedom of expression and use it to promote social change. She admires Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, Che Guevara and the Filipino revolutionary Andres Bonifacio 'who consecrated their lives for the freedom of human beings from the shackles of oppression.' Many of her poems were published, mostly by progressive publications. Some were translated by other poets in Tagalog, the language of the Philippine majority culture. A practising attorney, Cheryl Daytec-Yañgot is also an Associate Professor in St. Louis University, Baguio City, Philippines. by: Elton Jun Veloria)
The Best Poem Of Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot
Macliing Dulag's Warding-Off Speech
If Kabunian gave you a land of milk and honey
and ordered you to take care of it for posterity
What will you do if intruders want to take
it away?
I imagine that you will fight
For they who do not are ungrateful to
Kabunian; they value not His gift
They ignore his command to defend the land
in the name coming generation thousands of years from now
They who do not, spit on the graves of their ancestors
who preserved the land for them
For land is life
For life is the land
If you were in our place
You will fight
You will fire your guns as we raise our spears
You will probably pay your way to the justice system
that does not understand our ways
For that is what you did to grab the lands of people
Like us on the other side of the mountain
So do not be stubborn in your ignorance of
Why we refuse to vacate the land which had
always been our home
We are the Palestinians in Palestine
The Lumads in Mindanao
The Mangyans in Mindoro
We are the Martians in Mars
Go away. Let our people sleep in peace
Tonight. And the night after.
(Macliing Dulag was the indigenous hero who led the opposition against the establishment of the Chico River Dam in the Cordillera, Philippines- a project conceived without the knowledge of the affected indigenous peoples. He was killed by the military on 24 April 1984.)
Cheryl L. DaytecYañgot Comments
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2/14/2026 11:31:29 PM # 1.0.0
my misery broken loose more than twice even... and u do shoot me with ths poem..great, gorgeous, wonderful!