One-Legged Sentinel, Blue Waves

yusuf achmad

I pray to you, O lone-standing leg in solemn grace,
Lined in weariness, no full count of fingers trace.
Your face turned to the callous stone, heartless and old,
Like an ancient locomotive—whistling silence cold.
Your light reflects into a sky shrouded in cotton-gray,
Held in the arms of a sun that never hurries away.
 
That blazing sting—a painting of memory’s hue,
When your lips bloomed like a pomegranate new.
This one-legged witness ripened by lore,
Its red etched unease in waves that implore.
Blue swells roll on in voiceless drift,
Among the bitterness of fate and doubts that stiff.
 
I embrace past winds that never retreat,
Piercing time, spreading the scent of withheld retreat.
O brown earth beneath my hope-worn feet,
You’re the silent witness to love I sipped bittersweet.
I sparked it, I sowed it, then offered to the stars above—
With prayers that flow, unceasing, from this tongue of love.
 
I cast a handful of pebbles upon your blue breast,
To shake off the splinters, to cradle unrest.
White ripples caress coral lips left ajar,
Like a skiff defying shipwreck beneath a stilled star.
For the eternal love carved on my sky’s wide porch,
Where sea and heaven vow—without a torch.
 
Surabaya, 19 June 2025