“Song from the Cliffs of Tanimbar”

By: Rizal Tanjung
Translate: Anna Keiko

–

On an island born of the coral’s ache,
and suckled by the moon’s first wave,
the wind hangs its prayers
upon the weary shoulders of kenari trees,
while the sea pens love letters
in salty ink across the patient skin of stone.

I hear your name
in the breath of a turtle waiting centuries for its eggs to break,
in the silent tongue of the maleo bird
who sings only to the fractured sky.

Yuliana…
not a name,
but a song woven into ancestral boats
as they crossed destiny with broken oars
and faith strung to the stars.

You rose from sand that never tires of loving waves,
from mangrove roots that faithfully embrace the mud,
from the eyes of rain that fall in love
with the cracked face of the earth.

You are not merely a woman.
You are a dusk bathed in homebound canoes,
smelling of fish, of salt, of longing.
You are the meaning behind wounds no longer needing cure,
for they have turned into song.

On the cliffs of Tanimbar,
the wind braids your hair with fallen frangipani petals.
And the sky, which knows all,
bows in silence each time you walk—
barefoot,
without vengeance,
without question.

You do not love like humans do,
Yuliana.
You love as the earth loves the sea:
with surrender,
with waves,
with shipwreck.

Each child born upon this island
feeds on tales of you—
a queen without a crown,
a girl without fear,
a love without condition.

And the night,
if you listen closely,
amidst the chirring of crickets and the breath of the sky,
still calls your name:
“Yuliana…”
like a mother calling her child
who never truly left.

For love,
on this land,
is a voice that always returns,
even when the body
has dissolved
into the endless eastern tide.

West Sumatra, 2025