For my great-grandmother / yo sa dizaboh, Mabel Martens née Tessensohn (1905-1999)
KLAI BIRAH RODA:
how else would I have learned
the secrets of the Great Engine?
No, not the one behind the Industrial Revolution;
the other one they don’t know about.
The secret one.
The Kristang one.
Her one, lah.
Akeli, na alabanda, nali, nala.
The formulae are simple,
written as they are in the sea-constellations that line the First Harbour
within every human soul:
Dos-dos.
Ngua kung otru.
Isti kung akeli.
Eresberes.
And so by Her will,
the neurodivergent will rise,
the jenti Kristang will have their day in the eternal night,
the Last People will remain last, final
stewards of the breaking earth.
KLAI BIRAH KABESA:
so don’t bother getting confused.
She dances only for you;
she persisted, and she waited.
Calculus was never so straightforward.
Listen to how it is taught, still,
in the classrooms that overlook the Bounteous Void:
you, you and I will always be a fractal,
a recursion, a notation of trauma, abuse, revival, reintegration,
destiny and defiance,
karma so fulfilled
all She can say is
XELENTI.
You woke the sleeping giant;
Ja kodrah Kristang.
The dragon breathes.
The ring of fire lives.
Consider yourself, therefore, a breathing theorem like no other,
a living proof on both sides of the universe.