Saturday, May 28, 2016

.

by the river
where the water spoke
I heard your name
       uttered as if a greeting
       a word used for summoning

like the earth
you are home-soil;
       natural, in abundance,
       rich with remembering
     
       you house the ground
       beneath my feet
     
       .

       when you go
       to whom will I answer?
     

Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Tribute

I write only for my own heart, and for that which reside in it. My audience and subject is one. Nothing else matters.

“Poets don’t have an ‘audience’: They’re talking to a single person all the time.”
                                 —Robert Graves

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Tunggu

Nafas, nyawa,
jika dihitung setiap hela
                setiap detik
            setiap lembaran masa
yang kuukir dengan kata-kata
    buat mengisi sunyi;

mungkin kau sebagai cahaya 
     akan hampiri gelapku
                     sebagai hujan
              hapusi tandusku
                      sebagai ombak
              hancuri hausku
               
lantas keudara bersama angin biru
          kaupenuhi setiap ruangan
                   setiap gemaan
                setiap pintaan
      
  —yang setia
              dalam penuggunan.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

through never, for ever

I thought myself brave and again, I cowered. I question myself, is it cowardice, or rather out of wisdom that I now halt myself from... feeling unnecessarily. Does the heart always hold the utmost truth of our beings? Is it not prone to bouts of fickleness? Is love a thing to be possessed? A space to be occupied? A state of being?

They say love is selfless. How selfless, and for how long? The fact that I ask these questions at all. . .

Love is a burden for bearing, warmth for sharing and most of all, it is an offering. To love is to sacrifice all. 

If it didn't hurt at some point, then it wasn't love. Being human, we disappoint, naturally.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

sea of you II

If Silence were to betray me,  
spill my confidence to the winds;
           I would be bare

For all that I harbour
           my tethered soul
           my lettered heart
           this fettered love—

all will unravel into rivers of words,
return to the rapturous sea;
             where an image of you reside
             as pearls I hid in the sand
             beneath leagues of saltwater.
             

Monday, May 2, 2016

sea of you

There is an ocean of love in my heart
of a dark, depthless, conviction 
that no light shall come
to relieve me 
       of my pearls of silence;
buried in the sand
buried beneath leagues and leagues
of saltwater
whose rioting blues and grays
sing of my cerulean rapture.

Having heart

You blink back tears. It is dark, you were about to go to bed. You are tired, it had been a long day and it is so quiet in your room. You smile through your silly tears. H. had just texted you a photo of his newborn son. H. who had gone through so much this past few days. 

You had been reaching out to him. Reassuring him that he does not indeed stand alone in his hardships. You are just friends. Mere colleagues. He had been needlessly kind to you before and you, you revere kindness. You repay kindness with absolute loyalty.

Because you know what it feels like to feel as if the world is crushing you. What it feels like to need help and have no one there. No allies to fall back on, no hearts nearby willing to shelter yours, no hands to catch you as you fall. 

And now here you are, feeling blessed by H's joy. This is meaning. Kindness is meaning. It is a debt of love and mercy that I will do all in my power to repay.

Alhamdulillah.