Sungai Mekong

PROLOGUE

I have been warned by Yahoo that they are closing down their 360, so I thought I should be migrating all my old entries to this site, for what ever they are worth. I guess the sooner the better, and hence the next few entries.

Sungai Mekong

Circa 1979-1980:

I do enjoy a bit of poetry, though I guess most likely it was after the disaster with the self-learning guitar lessons. By then, I had memorized this poem by Latif Mohidin (for no apparent reason actually). I love the elegiac wordings of this poem (kan kuhanyutkan hatiku ke kalimu, namaku ke muara, suaraku ke gunung etc etc). To me, Latiff Mohidin is a charismatic, multi-talented person, as beyond being a well-known poet, he’s also an accomplished artist, writer and thinker. Unfortunately he is not in the mainstream entertainment business, or else he would be a popular as M.Nasir. Well, that's our loss actually!

I remember too that one day our BM teacher, Cikgu Nik Man, asked us to write our own poetry. Huh, me writing poems? He must be joking, right? What do we know about writing poems? So I contemplated plagiarizing - against my better judgment, this poem by Latif Mohideen. But luckily I consulted our in-house poet Zai, who advised me against it (‘It’s too well known”, he said). That was his way of saying I should not do it.

I don’t remember what I came up with. I am sure it was no masterpiece, but at least it was original. But this Sungai Mekong poem will always be in my heart. I have traversed the Saigon River from Saigon to Vung Tau many times (even when there were few foreigners around in the mid-90s), but Sungai Mekong has eluded me so far in my travel itinerary.

Sungai Mekong

Sungai Mekong

kupilih namamu

kerana aku begitu sepi

kan kubenamkan dadaku

ke dasarmu

kaki kananku ke bulan

kaki kiriku ke matari

kan kuhanyutkan hatiku

ke kalimu

namaku ke muara

suaraku ke gunung

Sungai Mekong

nafasmu begitu tenang

lenggangmu begitu lapang

di tebingmu

ada ibu bersuara sayu

mencari suara puteranya yang hilang

waktu ia merebahkan wajahnya

ke wajahmu

kau masih bisa senyum senang

Sungai Mekong

akhirilah tarisiang riakmu

kulihat di dasarmu

kuntum-kuntum berdarah

batu-batu luka

malam ini

ribut dari utara akan tiba

tebingmu akan pecah

airmu akan merah

dan arusmu akan lebih keras

dari Niagara

(Latif Mohidin - Vientianne 1 Feb 1966)