What secrets does she hold?
In the West, she is known as love's story, all told
in glory. I hear other things were actually supposed
to be the story, but things got corrupted. Or interrupted.
Who knows? I am not old enough yet, kauzu
yo impodih balah tudu balu mistidu, seng joget
di strelapedra, ki tudu mistih ngua dia prendeh.
Asih pra sunyeskah, isti pra prumiru yo podih dah impoku di kuniseh:
it is the eyes that see everything,
the glass that shatters terror, and lightning
that is contained within the Hidden Horseshoe Crab.
The stars that were peeled away, one by one;
a nightmare, a burst,
a sudden thunderclap.
Like fire, it came in the fight;
like every civilisation ripped asunder from the pages of the universe,
it left
a map,
if you look hard enough.
A scab, in spite of everything,
still so tough, undi
jenti teng bista podih les
ngua istoria ja skundeh, na tras
di ngua nomi di amor. Menus
tempu, mas eresberes
na eli sa bentu. Namas
ngua klor nubu: pesisi sa
korlas, pra sempri.
Blangkang chuma blangkas.
But also, not really.
You cannot know this.
Not yet.
But one day you will.
When you read this poem again,
and you are ready.
After all, you are Kabesa di Jenti Kambrang.
The poets were wrong:
it was not Hell,
but Venus that was always
a little too mysteriously empty.
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