Simply put, Tiempo's "Becoming" is a metaphor of life experienced through and beyond our senses.

The poem, rhymed loosely in four stanzas, asserts that people "become" what they see, hear, and feel if they appreciate and care enough for the events that they encounter in life.

The poem opens with the persona, apparently a grandmother, as suggested in the third stanza.

As when Granddaughter
Comes up the steps from school,
And I turn into the door
Letting her in

The grandmother-presumably reflective of Tiempo herself, who is already in her eighties- describes the bodily processes rather mechanically, tracing the internal coordination of stimuli from the brain and nerves to the heart, veins and extremities. The latter half of the first stanza reinforces such perfunctory details with the impression that the persona lets her "locomotive crew," her body, to control her while she assumes the role of a mere spectator.

Showing that I look, run and walk,
Showing, head to toes, I move,
I hunger, I talk
Showing I anger and I love.

However, the persona immediately rebukes this impression in declaring "This is my body," which meant that she is the one in control over her body, rather than the other way around. In effect, she recognizes the fact that her existence is not confined to the internal locomotive functions alone.

In the second and third stanzas, the persona recalls incidents in her life which made her "become" something else. For instance, she "turned into a flower" when she receives red roses; her body is "wind, mud, and sucking water" when the Ormoc cyclone struck and killed a family she is acquainted with (there is no hint given as to what relation she has with the family); she turns into a cold drink and sandwich when her granddaughter arrived from school hungry.

Obviously, "becoming" a flower, a storm, and a sandwich is figurative-symbolic metaphors, so to speak. These are creative substitutions of direct statements. A simple "thank you" may very well be the equivalent of "Becoming a flower," but the latter phrase poetically draws a picture of an old woman whose face suddenly lights up and "blooms" with joy. "Becoming wind, mud, and sucking water" is a vivid image of mixed desolation, helplessness and anger in the aftermath of a tragedy. "Becoming her granddaughter's hunger" sounds lovingly maternal in so few words.

Note that the persona experiences these events with her senses; she probably smells the flowers, hears the cries of Merlie's father, and sees the famished expression on her granddaughter's face. Yet, as this critique wants to point out, what she feels is beyond what her senses have stood witness to. What she feels is too deep and sincere for her to merely describe it as something she smells, hears, or sees. She instead borrows qualities from these experiences, as no other words could better express how she feels than the experiences themselves. In effect, she "becomes" what she has seen, smelled and heard.

The poem concludes with the persona deeply in touch with herself and the poem she writes, an impression which ultimately gives the poem its depth.

Tiempo, who is National Artist for Literature and co-founder of the Siliman Writers' Workshop, waxes sentimental in this touching poem about life experiences. Her use of relatively simple, common language renders an understated yet sincere tone to "Becoming;" it is astonishing how she achieves such vivid descriptions using rather commonplace terms.

The beauty of Tiempo's poem lies in its unpretentious telling of events and use of strong metaphors. Such efficacy is best illustrated in the closing verse, "And I become the poem I write," where one's eyes are led to read the lines all over again; by then, the four-stanza poem has transformed and in faith has become the persona, the author herself, speaking.