Poems by Raudal Tanjung Banua
Raudal Tanjung Banua, manages the Rumahlebah and Akar Indonesia Community in Yogyakarta.
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Peureulak
Where is Peureulak located
In your old map and your new map
Where is the place to depart and anchor
The ships in Kuala Bandar Khalifah
Where I raise the flag of desire
Want to meet ?
Looking for traces of history on the coast of the Strait of Malacca
And the expanse of the foothills of Bukit Barisan
Like looking for evidence of land stabbed by the footprints
of Sultan Syahr Nawi's expedition elephants
And the site of a palace whose traces are no longer visible.
Finally I met a pair of sacred tombstones
On the bank of the quiet flowing Trenggulon river
It was like ink running out of water, grounding the ship
And slowing down the movement of the boat's sails. The rustle of bamboo leaves
The sound of children reciting the Koran
Praying for Sultan Alaiddin Syaid Maulana Abdul Aziz Syah
and Princess Meurah Mahdum Khudawi
The sultan and the empress laid the foundation for the Peureulak site
Lying silent for centuries, until now embraced by a fence
Monasa Park, a marker of the first Islamic Sultanate in Southeast Asia,
Their graves are like eternal flowers
Bloom under the sun's path
"Peureulak, before Pasai, before Banda, before others,
This is the first," said an old duck herder
while pointing to the monument gate
which was abandoned in the middle of the rice fields. The wooden stick
lines the horizon and the sun that will set
in the direction of Barus
It's the same point on the west coast of Sumatra
It's the same recorded as the oldest and first
But it's equally unreadable on the new maps of this century
Because a treacherous law has erased your name
And pouring all the stories into the Ocean's decree
Like an old man who slowly disappears
With the cawing of his ducks
Until only specks remain
Swallowed by the green sea of rice fields.
/2023
Also read: Nuryana Asmaudi SA's poems
Imagine Harianboho
from Toba Pier
imagine daily boho
from the lake pier, sitor village
on the other side
invisible because it is protected by the island
like a lover's eyebrows that make my gaze shift
kissing memories up to the neck
level
A boat was sailing, making me realize that I had formed a new ladder up the hill in the form of stone steps to the hull of Pusuk Buhit.
and the moss of time thickens in my memory
which continues to look at
the center of the poet's ancestors,
as if I were reading the green paper letter again
confirming the adventurer refuses to come home
ah, the child's shadow is gone!
/2023
Also read: Joko Rabsodi's poems
Balige Market
Batak traditional houses
Stand up in rows similar to those in my favorite huta
When I entered, I found wet lake fish
and dried. The aroma of andaliman pierced my senses as if it had carried me to a host's kitchen. Vegetables
from gardens and fields in the mountains
piled down from goods rickshaws
along with old colts mooing but still fierce
Gomak noodles and ombus-ombus cakes emitting hot smoke
gentle in the nimble hands of traders
Sate Padang and arsik gurameh
Along with pork satay
Exchanging smoke on the edge of the causeway
Free to choose
Balige Market is not just a market in the crowd. But an abandoned village behind the silence of a mountain where travelers can stop before leaving for the cities and forgetting their loved ones.
/2023
Suayan
Climbing to Suayan Hill
The sound of gibbons echoes faintly
in the last remaining forest. The waters of the nearby jungle ring in the eardrums. The trickle of water falling on the rocks
Like the tickling of old fingers in a saluang hole
Accompanying the song mayik ka descend*
While the road continues to rise, the rice remains upright
On the sloping plot of terraces, waiting to bend
When it turns yellow. The trees shiver
In the mist, reminiscent of a line of men
looking for a shortcut to a hiding place
A time when rice fields were not hoeed
Fields were not planted
Because their shoulders carried rifles.
At the end of the song, a man wears a cloth
A sarong wipes the soot from his eyes
Between the last trees and the trickling water
He remembers the wounds of the hunt and the sorrow of escape
And the hills that will now be hoeed
The rumble of big machines
Certainly changes the rhythm of saluang.
/2023
Notes: *The title of a classic Minang saluang song, "Suayan Mayik ka Turun" (Suayan, the corpse will come down).
Also read: Naning Scheid's poems
Surau Tuo Taram
Behind the transparent curtain
Syekh Ibrahim Mufti's gravestone
I can see. Very beautiful.
Curved short pillars
Supporting a wall that is not a boundary
for the prayers being offered
The tomb dome is round
with a rusty tin roof
Just like Bukik Bulek* brown white rock
—At its feet the splash of pool water
Stands upright against the sharp roof
Surau Tuo Taram
I enjoy everything in silence
In the amazement of the traveler
I listen to everything that is deep-rooted
It grows and spreads throughout my body
Even though my remembrance is not yet as splashy as pond water
But my heart is as happy as a fish
When the call to prayer sounded,
time threw a net at me
And like a transparent curtain,
The net did not prevent me as a congregation from looking at the prayer priest's back.
/2023
Note: *Bukik Bulek (Bukit Bulat) is the name of a hill in Nagari Taram, Limapuluh Kota Regency, West Sumatra.