.

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?
     

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

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.

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.

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.

             

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.