“Primus circumdediste me”
~ motto on Juan Sebastián Elcano's coat of arms; 1522
Windless, we languish for days
in the straits. Magallanes is gone:
dead at the hands of warriors
in Mactan. His resting place,
the watery deep; or the Datu's yard,
where doubtless he served as trophy
until they gave what was left of him
to the wild boars, to ants.
Melaka,
you are so close by! Your shadow or shape
almost carries in the humid air. Perhaps
I only imagine so. When going down the hold,
your mingled aromatics enfold my face: buah
pala, buah pelaga from Ambon and Ternate.
Bunga lawang, its small, hard, fragrant
stars; bunga cengkih, the dry nailheads
we crushed with our teeth to sweeten
our breath, coming before the sultan.
And I was curious about how the smooth
pod case bore mark after mark, how I
could trace with my fingernail
the lines that spread
in circles outward.
Melaka, my mouth remembers the veins
of kaffir lime leaves, the nostalgia of duan
pandan. I have learned to say these names in other
tongues; or at least bring the mouth as close
as possible, before the words vanish the way a small
craft can plummet over an edge. In the silence,
we hear only water's pure, untranslatable voice.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
