By Dorothea Rosa Herliany
each time I dig I never reach the well’s base. I pass countless shards of my decrepit age. my breath is too short to scale its depths; my gaze too blind to fathom its height. hundreds of fallen prayerful phrases create a song amidst almost inaudible chimes.
I call to myself as I soak in thick dreams. I answer in restless whispers. painful moans bespeak a biography of torn wounds for the scattering sands. so this is the depth, the distance that I have dug? only so that my womb can preserve a ball of silent history.
oh, prophet! how distant my shadow seems. how dark is time’s lane, made increasingly dark by the sky’s tightened grip.
Translated by Harry Aveling