"Grandmother" by Kemala

Grandmother by Kemala and translated by Hafiz Arif

No one knows her exact age.
She herself isn’t really sure.
She is very old. And apart from God,
she most loves the mats she weaves.
She takes the thorny mengkuang from the deep
jungle.



She knows the cruel sting of its thorns and the pain
of torn flesh as the thorns strike deep.
She has boldly drunk the ancient waters of this
love.

Grandmother clears the thorns from the green
leaves.

She passes through difficult days of smiling,
laughing like the water in which she boils her
leaves,
before she dries and straightens them.

She loves the dazzling colours of the forest,
learns answers to the riddles of life from the criss-
cross of flowers.

Knows the meaning of love
and ordered devotion.
The mat is done.
She flings it forward.
It is beautiful.
Lost in thought, she is happy,
and grateful.
Then her customers come. Their sting
is worse than that of the mengkuang.
How deep the meaning of love.
How high the price of parting.

(In-sights-Malaysian poems)