Raja Ampat: For the Raped Island
(A long poem dedicated to the silent suffering of a paradise)
Author: Rizal Tanjung
Translated by: Anna Keiko
—
I
At the quiet end of rapture’s song,
A low murmur arises from broken coral,
Raja Ampat—this Eden unaccursed—
Whimpers softly amidst scarlet foam.
It never strikes back—
For nature has no hand to slap,
It only answers in measured tone:
A sudden cascade of landslides,
A wind no longer tender.
It finds its voice through collapsing silence.
—
II
Behold!
Those suited investors,
Riding jet skis as they trample your flesh,
Naming you “a paradise for lease,”
Discounting your sacred worth with the seasons.
Concrete is poured into coral’s womb,
Mangroves stripped bare to the bone,
White sands sold by the measure,
Like cocaine for coastal oligarchs.
Your island, Raja Ampat,
Is laid bare like an old woman, plundered by city lords—
They never bow before the moss on stone,
As the moss prays for the rock.
—
III
The song of paradise birds grows hoarse,
They chant Aristotle’s ancient ballads,
In fables of cause and effect
Devoid of malice, filled only with warning.
“I am God’s artwork,” murmurs the coral,
“Now morphed into a homestay brochure,
Snooped on by drones,
Trimmed by advertisements,
Lined with promotional prices.”
Hornbills lay eggs beneath resort storefronts,
Napoleon fish wander lost amidst plastic heaps
And the detritus of five-star buffet remains.
—
IV
Aristotle becomes the rolling sea,
Seated atop dunes carved by excavators:
“I do not exact punishment upon you.”
“Calamity is but the memoir you inscribed yourselves.”
“Nature never rages;
It only records,
And then responds.”
It composes verse upon felled coconut trees,
Carving admonitions into pandanus leaves
Now reduced to organic straws
For the city’s social influencers.
—
V
False gods
Arrive bearing power banks from the urban sprawl,
Setting up Wi-Fi in sago palms,
Inviting nature for live “positive energy content”
While profaning its sacred core.
They root villas into hillside chests,
Inserting pipelines into limestone caverns—
That ancient womb which once cradled ancestral hymns.
Your island, Raja Ampat,
Is branded—a packaged honeymoon deal,
Complete with the bonus of
A sunset stripped of honesty.
—
VI
“Humankind,”
The trembling trees confess,
“We once sang in unison,
Now we shudder like trauma victims
Forced to smile for the drone’s eye.”
Did you believe that silence equates to meekness?
Just because it did not protest at palace gates?
No—
Nature buries all within its roots and hidden currents;
When the moment comes,
It needs no words—
Only to shift the earth,
Raise the seas,
And command the skies to withhold their rain.
—
VII
When the final tendril of sunset
Falls upon the wreck of a broken pier,
Your children will ask:
“Daddy, why is the sky no longer blue?”
And you will reply:
“Because we replaced it with filters, my child.”
When tides engulf
Hotels hawking honeymoons,
You will say:
“This is not divine retribution,
But the tender correction of a trampled mother.”
—
VIII
Raja Ampat will not burn with wrath.
It knows no hatred.
It will only vanish,
Like a love betrayed time and again
By avaricious paramours.
And we shall become
Tales of those born of dust—
Not of beauty,
But of a horrifying fable:
Humankind, in pursuit of a sandless pool,
Violating the allegory of paradise.
—
IX
O God,
If You gaze upon Raja Ampat this day,
See how we begin to repent
Only after the blaze has passed.
Behold the
Corals that can no longer be reborn,
The fish schools adrift on lost paths,
And the rainforests weeping
Amid CSR reports and corporate laughter.
O God,
If this is truly Your paradise,
Forgive us—
For we have turned it into a brothel
Cloaked as “green investment.”
In the end,
Nature exacts no vengeance,
Only silent waiting—
Awaiting the perfect moment
To deliver
A wordless reprimand.
West Sumatra, 2025
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