A Borneo Trilogy in Verse
This is not the history of any single people.
It is the heat left in the palm
after the shaking stops—
the kind that will not let the drums
sound the way they used to.What remains is neither truce nor victory.
Only a scar that did not heal clean,
a blade that now carries two quiet bloods,
and a green that keeps rising
whether anyone is ready or not.
I. FRACTURE OF THE RIVERS
A Lyric Sequence
BOOK ONE: Shadows Over Buloh
Morning Smoke
Mula
The longhouse breathes
through split bamboo.
Resin smoke
clings to the rafters—
sweet at first,
then only ash.
Five years since the outlanders
left pale mud on these planks
and took rice with open hands.
Today white cloth
seals them in Batang Kail.
The air smells
of leaves left standing too long.
She lies still.
Someone else’s weight
crosses the floorboards.
The blue bead
cool against her throat.
The Elder’s Blade
Headman of Buloh
He sets the parang
across his knees.
Light finds the old oil
and the darker stains.
“Buloh does not drink with Temedak.
We said this until the words
lost their teeth.
Yet the poison does not care
which roof it enters.
One daughter.
One son from them.
Bring the new shoot
or watch the strangers blacken
and our own children
drink the same water.
I am finished counting old salt jars
while the children cough.
Go.
Do not return empty-handed.”
His voice stays low.
Mula feels the words
settle like wet cloth
across her shoulders.
Mula’s Vow
Mula
She binds her hair
with green rattan
that still weeps sap.
Her father’s spear
worn smooth by his palm.
At her side the family Mandau—
blade dark,
handle wrapped
by hands long gone.
The blue bead
came from a child
who could not yet say her name.
She touches both once.
“I go for the rice
shared under this roof.
If the rivers turn first,
the war will have nothing left
to claim.”
War Paint
Mula
Two fingers
through red earth and spit.
The paste cools,
tightens,
pulls the skin taut.
Young men stamp
and shout Temedak names.
She walks through them
without answering.
The paste cracks
when she sets her jaw.
“Keep your blades.
The forest remembers longer
than any of you.”
Behind her the drums begin—
not hungry yet,
only certain.
River Crossing
Mula
The canoe takes the current
with a wooden groan.
Black water
smells of silt and crushed fern.
Buloh’s roof ridge
vanishes at the first bend.
Somewhere upstream
Nyali pushes off
from Temedak’s bank.
Two hulls.
One river.
The water climbs her wrists
and leaves them aching.
She paddles in long strokes.
Green walls close.
Night Fire Alone
Mula
Small fire
under a buttress root.
Smoke rises thin,
smelling of wet wood.
She remembers
scarred knuckles
showing children
how to steady a metal needle.
The bead rests warm
against her collarbone.
The Mandau lies
within reach.
Tomorrow the enemy
steps onto the same trail.
BOOK TWO: Temedak’s War Drums
Nyali’s Call
Nyali
The drums reach him
through the floorboards
before any voice.
He tastes readiness
like old iron.
The elder’s hand
settles on his shoulder—
heavy, dry.
“Walk with the Buloh woman.
Return with the new shoot
or let the forest keep your bones.
I will not ask twice.”
Nyali nods once.
The drums keep beating
after the elder has gone.
The Young Warrior
A Hunter from Temedak
He oils his blade
with wild-pig fat
until the metal holds
the low light.
No kill marks yet.
He ties the sheath
with the knot his mother taught him,
pulling until his fingers ache.
Then he steps into the undergrowth
carrying songs that still expect blood
and a quiet question
he does not yet speak:
what if the shoot matters more
than the names we shout?
Meeting at the Fork
Mula and Nyali
Two canoes grate
onto the same sandbar.
Mula stands first,
spear butt in wet sand,
point lowered.
Nyali’s gaze moves
across the red earth on her face,
the bead,
the dark Mandau.
“Buloh.”
“Temedak.”
River water ticks
against both hulls.
Neither steps closer.
The sand is cool.
Shared Silence
Mula and Nyali
They walk until the canopy
seals the sky.
Leaves slap wet
across bare arms,
leaving green smears that itch.
She holds out the water gourd.
He drinks
from the place her mouth has been.
The water tastes of river
and faint salt.
He lifts a vine
heavy with ants.
She passes under.
The old hate rides between them
like a pack cutting
the same grooves
into both shoulders.
The Outlanders’ Trace
Mula
A plastic tag
bleached to the colour of bone
still wired to a sapling.
Beside it a rusted tin
half-swallowed by roots.
Inside: damp paper,
three braided rivers,
and the repeated word
for the palm that must be climbed.
Mula turns the paper carefully.
The ink smells of mould.
Nyali watches her hands
and says nothing.
First Danger
Mula and Nyali
The pit viper lies coiled
where the path narrows,
scales the dull green of wet moss.
Nyali’s weight shifts.
The snake’s head lifts.
Mula’s spear moves once—
short, precise,
finding the soft place
behind the jaw.
They stand over the still length.
Only the shared breath
that comes after almost-death,
sharp in the chest.
Camp of Uneasy Truce
Mula and Nyali
Rice boiled in a single tin.
Steam carries river and ash.
He asks, voice low,
“Why risk for those who left?”
She turns the bead once.
“The same water reaches both banks
when the rains come harder.”
He feeds the fire
another stick.
The flames throw brief light
across her face
and take it away again.
BOOK THREE: The Quarantine Call
Smoke from Batang Kail
Mula
From the ridge
the sealed village appears
as a pale wound in the green.
White cloth hung between poles,
edges already grey.
Figures move slowly inside.
One child—smaller than memory—
raises a hand
and lets it fall without waving.
Even at this distance
the air carries
the sweet-foul smell
of breath that has turned.
The Message
The Outlanders’ Words
A sealed bamboo tube
left at the boundary stones.
Inside: paper soft with humidity.
“The toxin darkens the veins first,
then the eyes take a yellow film,
then the cough brings up water
the colour of old tea.
Only a newly sprouted shoot
from the true Nibung cleanses it.
Reach the crown.
Finish what our hands could not.”
Mula’s Memory
Mula
Scarred knuckles
closing around a cup of rice wine.
They left a metal compass
and a promise of return.
They took only hope
and the names of two longhouses
willing to feed strangers.
The memory sits in her chest
like a stone that has grown heavier.
Nyali’s Doubt
Nyali
“Why spend our blood
on those who walked away?”
Mula’s fingers find the bead.
“The same water that reaches Batang Kail
will reach our own steps.”
He looks toward the white cloth
and says nothing more.
He keeps walking.
The Pact Spoken
Mula and Nyali
Under the buttressed meranti
they speak it
while the light dies.
“Until the new shoot is found
we walk as one shadow.
Afterward the elders
may call the drums again.”
Into the Deeper Green
Mula and Nyali
They turn
from the quarantine smoke.
Ahead the map ends
in three rivers that lose their names.
Behind, two sets of war drums
waiting for either cure or bodies.
The forest closes
with the wet sound of leaves
settling after a body has passed.
Night of the First Volume
The Forest
Stars visible
only in torn places.
Two sleeping forms,
weapons within reach
of either hand.
Neither hand moves.
The toxin waits
in the sealed village.
The Nibung waits
somewhere ahead,
its new shoot still hidden
in the high crown.
End of the Fracture of the Rivers.
“Like this lyric trilogy? ❤️
Support my literary and digital art with crypto.
Thank you for reading and viewing my work”.