DEATH OF A FRIEND

by Buff Whitman-Bradley

The death of the orangutan named Sampurna was confirmed Thursday by the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) in Borneo. 

Sampurna the orangutan has died

You may not have known him in life

But you will perhaps 

Know him in death

 

A male orangutan who was being monitored

By a wildlife rescue organization

He was at home in an Indonesian rainforest

When it caught fire

 

As the fire raged on and on

It filled with toxic smoke

Which Sampurna and all his neighbors

Could not help but breathe

 

After several days of poisonous inhalations

Sampunrna was found wheezing and choking

In a dry roadside ditch

Unable to stand

 

Rescue workers tried to help

They lifted him from the ditch

Gave him oxygen 

Told him he was going to get better

 

But he did not get better

The struggle for each labored breath

Grew more and more difficult until

Sampurna died

 

Of course his death was emblematic

Of the deadly effects of the climate catastrophe

That is wreaking havoc with life

On planet Earth

 

But his death was also the death

Of a singular being, 

A fellow creature, a unique self 

A brother to all of us, a friend

Buff Whitman-Bradley podcasts his poetry at thirdactpoems.podbean.com .

THE PUNAN BATU CLAN

by Diana Morley

Halfway up the mountain was a cavern as large as an amphitheater. The cave, which contained a dense concentration of swiftlet nests, is a sacred site for the Punan, who consider it the source of all things. Once inside, a man named Ma’ruf took a seat on the dirt floor. He was in his early 40s but appeared to be half that age, with swooped-over bangs and the youthful skin that comes from a life lived in the shade…. Ma’ruf began to hum, a deep and powerful vocalization that rose from his chest and echoed through the cave. Words took shape in a language only the elders understood. “I am like a porcupine who comes to the cave to rest,” he chanted, according to a translation of a recording of the chant made by Dr. Lansing. —“A Vanishing Nomadic Clan, With a Songlike Language All Their Own: New genetic research confirms the oral history of a small group of nomadic people living in Indonesia’s rainforest,” The New York Times, September 19, 2023

I am like a porcupine who comes to the cave to rest.

I am a benign soul grateful to be guest

seeking only the divine sleep of the blessed. 

Another day I may be gregarious, feel auspicious, 

forgetting the need to be scrupulous— 

but so worn I now risk becoming odious.

Easy to think reading about is knowing about

but pulling up from my core to bombinate,

to drone, as I can only in my dreams, 

thirsting to crawl into the cave to hold his hand. 

Half a world away, in awe of the sounds,

musical if not lyrical, plucking sounds

from belly, tuned from birth to the heart.

I am like a poet come today to words

from others in my family never met,

feeling the ken of their words, wanting 

to touch as if I knew how to feel by braille.

Diana Morley has published poetry online and in journals and in her poetry books. If she stopped writing, it would be the end.