Kevin Martens Wong, Singapore
Pra soneh
Re di ila!
Kada anoti yo ja sperah
nadah na bos sa peli
mergulah na bos sa palasu
na kambra na dianti di peu di seu.
Nus neng amigu neng par
seja dos krengkrensa di mar.
Kiora nus detah juntadu na bos sa kama di barku,
yo abrasah kung bos, bos abrasah kung yo,
ja buskah kaminyu nubu intresmiu dos riu stranjeru,
ta nabegah intresmiu jarding deus pun ja skiseh.
Antis prumiru bes ja ubih kung sufra ta boyah
ilagri di bazar marah na bara di yo sa mulera,
ngua ila fikah ila namas —
peli fikah peli.
Kiora yo impodih sigih diskuniseh strela sa korsang di pedra,
Ja buskah isti buniteza trabalu,
na bos sa ila sempri ta trimih na sentru di olu di samatra,
na mandala cheu di gera.
Yo inda ubih gritu di kada armada ja fundah na bos sa praya,
Kontu bos gapeh yo sa ombru, impodih sperah, impodih papiah,
chuma blangkas impoku senget,
chuma strela di mar ja buskah kaza nubu na angkru.
Yo, pun, ja fikah memoria tantu ja skiseh,
memoria di samatra mas belu,
aloleng di fing inda kereh lumiah eli sa pasadu,
inda kereh buskah nomi di jenti ja tomah tudu di yo.
Kontu na pasadu mar podih parah…
Nang asih, nus marah nus onsong na akeh dia selenti
ja durah pra mutu tantu sekulu,
akeh dia kiora yo ja buskah nggeng ja figurah podih buskah —
bos sa korua, akeh korua bos ja bateh na yo sa stretu:
Re de isti ila, yo sa prispi, yo sa irmang,
Yo dah birah isti ila, bos sa ila-ila di sul.
Bos olotu sa re, olotu sa sultan soneh, ja skiseh di sol.
Mas bos nggeh korua.
Isti yo impodih intindeh, kauzu
yo sa praya ngka bos sa praya.
Mas yo ja prendeh nabegah naki,
olah mas lonzi di bos sa peu di seu,
olah mas lonzi di lonzi bos lembrah bos sabeh,
na rentu di bos sa korsang karang sa fundeza:
Laguna-laguna undi yo sa dedu gostah nadah;
cheu di rikeza yo nenang mereseh,
kaminyu di penitensia pra bos sa futura,
kaminyu onsong
nggeh birah
kauzu bos sa mar ja fikah yo sa mar,
chuma paya mas lonzi di praya di yo sa
reinu
ja fikah bos sa paya.
Re di fundeza,
kapitang undi yo sa tera kabah, undi bos sa ila komesah,
Yo ja ingkontrah namas unchinyu di tudu tristeza
Inda fikah na bos sa bara sigredu.
Mas yo pun ja detah seng paredi na bos sa terumbu,
cheu tristeza sa forsa mas forsa di mil di maris;
yo sperah dia kiora bos pun podih alegrah, ngua bes mas,
na buniteza fineza di bos onsong sa agu,
undi sempri teng safrang pra buskah na barku ilagri
kabernu keninu,
undi sempri teng kantiga pra rajawali ta abuah na
seu roisu,
undi lontra kung tigri pun kereh nadah juntadu.
Coral Crown
For Anfim
King of the islands!
The nights I have waited
to swim in your skin,
to dive into your palace
in your room at the foot of the sky.
Neither are we partners nor lovers,
simply two children of the sea.
When we lie together on your caravan of vessels,
I holding you, you holding me,
we are wayfarers between two foreign rivers,
coursing between gardens that God himself forgot.
Before I first listened to the whispers floating through
the markets tied up to the piers of my mind,
any island was any island,
as skin was just skin.
And when I could ignore the bedrock of the stars no longer,
I discovered terrible, inescapable beauty,
in your islands forever shuddering in the eye of the storm,
in a mandala forever at war within.
I still hear the cries of every armada I wrecked on your shallows
when you cling to my shoulder, hopeless, incoherent,
a horseshoe crab still too senget to find shelter,
a starfish still looking for an anchor to call home.
I, too, am but a half-remembered memorial
to the monsoons of an older time,
one last glimmering lantern still looking to make sense of a past
where all that remains are names of the ones who took.
If only the ocean could have been held back.
But we moor ourselves both to the solace of one glorious day
that has lasted for centuries too many to count,
the day when I did what no other dared to even conceive
and found the crown that you let tumble into what were my straits.
My lord, my liege, my brother,
I return these to you, your southern islands.
You are their king, their Sultan soneh, once forgotten by the sun.
And you do not want the crown.
I can never hope to understand why
my shores are not your shores.
Yet I have learned to sail them as best as I can,
to set my eyes beyond your horizons,
to see farther than the farther you think you know,
into the morass that dims the abyss of your coral heart:
The lagoons your skin nudges my fingers of water into,
filled with undeserved riches,
explorations of penance that your futures never asked for,
voyages of loneliness
that will never come for them again
because your sea has become mine,
just as the mangroves beyond the promontories of my unfailing sovereignty
have become yours.
King of the depths,
shipmaster where all my lands end and all your islands begin,
I have mapped but a fraction of all the sorrows
that still dot your secret bays.
But I also have lain in quiet defenselessness upon your reefs,
filled with the strength of grief a thousand tides over,
and I long for the day when you too will be able to bask, once again,
in the delicate beauty of your own waters
where there is always saffron to be sought in the sampans along the coves,
where there are always songs for the kingfisher who leaps across the purple sky,
where even otters and tigers always seek to swim in peace.
Kevin Martens Wong is a speculative fiction writer, linguist and teacher. He is the founder and director of Kodrah Kristang, the youth-led multiethnic grassroots initiative to revitalize the critically endangered Portuguese-Eurasian Kristang language in Singapore, and founder of Unravel: The Accessible Linguistics Magazine. His first novel, Altered Straits, was longlisted for the Epigram Books Fiction Prize, and his work has also appeared in LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, Transect and entitled.
