HUJAN PERTAMA
Azhari

Sudah tiga sore ibu memandang ke timur. Memacakkan pandang ke dinding gunung. Seperti bersiap menelannya.

Aku ingat begitulah kebiasaan ibu dulu menanti kepulangan mendiang bapak setelah empat-tiga hari berada di pasar. Padahal pekan yang jaraknya 35 Km dari kampung tidaklah berada di sebalik gunung itu, tapi di barat. Kata ibu gunung yang biru legam itu memberikan ketentraman tatkala menunggu.

Kalau sudah begitu ibu akan berlama-lama berdiri

THE SUMMONS
DAVID WHISH WILSON
VINTAGE, RANDOM HOUSE, AUSTRALIA, 2006
http://www.randomhouse.com.au

Book Review by DR. CATHIE DUNSFORD

“If a cooper made a barrel for Flade’s father, it was as if the barrel was made not for his father but for the sake of the barrel itself. Contained in the barrel’s hoops and struts was something that could never be bought: the invisible signature of concentration and intent, and more- of love and craft, and love of craft.” Flade

ALONG THE CAUCA RIVER by Jaime Jaramillo Escobar (Colombia)
translated from the Spanish by Judith Rodriguez

We used to go down – me and my horse – twice a year to the Cauca River.
Down out of the high mountains we’d go and at daybreak we’d catch sight of the
river among black rocks and clumps of palms, and it was great to see the river.
We’d be travelling at night in August, by moonlight, or else in winter, one January or
another,
But my horse knew

THE MOVELESS SEA OF THE LLANOS by Oscar Echeverri Mejía
translated from Spanish by Judith Rodriguez

You don’t have to tell me it’s the sea. That I knew
from the herons dreaming of their sails. From the palm-grove islands
lifting their tall masts.
I sensed it
from the horizon holding the sky up on arms of mist,
from the sun sinking
to die in the arm of the anguished sea of grass
and the sun rising
reborn, like a great sea-beacon.

You don’t have to tell

THE ASYLUM-SEEKERS

Bearing your loss
however you can
to our fearful ports
NO PLACE
my abasement
Your cry in my hearing
your children your children
the salt waste
these depths these deaths
my abasement
Your feet in my shallows
your hands at my shore
my guns at your face
inquisition
NO PLACE
Your plea in my ear
your need in my sight
rights and denial
undoing of lives
NO PLACE
My guards in your path
your grief in