Sa’eda Buang

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1. BIOGRAPHY

2. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION

3. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

4. SELECTED POEMS

SELECTED POEMS

Pustakaku dalam remang senja

Senja ini aku bertemu al-Ghazali, Aristotle & berlaksa
pemikir lagi
Menyambung retorika lama yang tidak berpenghujung
Disaksikan ribuan khazanah tentang hayat & makrifat
Lazat dan nikmat mengalahkan sungai madu & susu
Namun, malam hampir tiba
Tidurku nanti entah bangun jua

Di liputan jilid-jilid ini aku merenungi kembali teori, pro-teori,
     anti-teori
Pasca-teori yang kuhelus manja
Berkat kedewasaan yang masih merangkak
Sabarlah! Bisik al-Farabi & Manheim
Agar tidak menginjak-injak lagi seperti keegoan semalam
Yang menumpahkan zamrud penegertian & pualam kehidupan
Di celah retak-retak padang perhitungan fikiran kontang
Walaupun malam mendesak datang

Senja di bilik pustaka penuh dupa nan wangi
Aku & gergasi pena bebas berbicara separas mata
Tanpa belenggu hukum-hakam kaku yang mengerdilkan fitrah jiwa
Mencari-cari puncak kebenaran
Berkat sintesis aql, roh & zat
Agar membawa ke satu titik yang tidak relative
Entah bila bersua
Tetapi ketidakpastian adalah mungkin pencarian & pencarian
adalah kenikmatan yang berpanjangan
Namun, malam menghimpit datang

Pustakaku dalam remang senja
Penuh wangian gaharu dan cendana ilmu
Ingin kufana di lautan pencarian tetapi kerut ibn Khaldun,
Kealpaan racun penakatan
Dan malam pasti datang

Pustakaku di hujung remang senja
Ingin kuserap segala wangianmu dalam cembul tintalalu
kusembahkan ke kaki bangsa
Agar harumnya sepanjang zaman kerana malam mengetuk
tiba kerana malam mengetuk tiba

by Sa’eda Buang
from Singapore Press Holdings (2003)

My Reading Room in Twilight

In this twilight I met al-Ghazali, Aristotle & countless
other thinkers
Taking up an old rhetoric without end
Witnessed by thousands of life’s treasures & makrifat
Rich and sweet beyond the rivers of honey & milk
Yet, night draws near
When I sleep tonight, who knows if I will wake

Within the covers of these volumes I reflect again on theory, pro-theory
anti-theory
Post-theory that I indulge gently
Thanks to a maturity still crawling
Be patient! al-Farabi & Mannheim whisper
So I do not trample again, as my ego did last night,
Spilling the emerald of understanding & marble of life
Into the fissures of the calculating field of the barren mind
Even as night presses in

At twilight in the reading room, thick with incense
I speak freely, eye to eye, with the giants of the pen
Free of the rigid fetters of law that shrink the soul’s nature
Seeking the summit of truth
Through the synthesis of aql, spirit & essence
Towards a point beyond the relative
Who knows when it will be reached
Yet uncertainty may itself be the searching & the seeking
A pleasure that endures
Yet, night presses in

My reading room in twilight
Filled with the fragrance of agarwood and sandalwood of knowledge
I long for dissolution in the ocean of seeking but Ibn Khaldun’s furrowed brow warns
Heedlessness is the poison of survival
And night will surely come

My reading room at the edge of twilight
I long to absorb all your fragrance into my inkwell
And offer it at the feet of the nation
So its fragrance endures through the ages
For night comes knocking—
for night comes knocking 

by Sa’eda Buang
translated from the Malay by Muhammad bin Zailan
from Singapore Press Holdings (2003)

BIOGRAPHY >