Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

'Wajah/Muka' by Anita Patel

by
States of Poetry ACT - Series Three

'Wajah/Muka' by Anita Patel

by
States of Poetry ACT - Series Three

Two words for face in my language:
Wajah from the Arabic wajh
rolls off the tongue sweetly
and melts like honey
in our mouths …
Wajah – a fitting sound for
the cherished tenderness of
a human face …
And yet …
I prefer the honest drum beat
of muka. An island word
harvested from salty seas and
fertile earth, blown through palm fronds
and tossed about in monsoon rain-
coconut redolent thud of pestle in
mortar – mu–ka
hammer hard syllables
chiselling the naked face
of my Malay ancestors …
When you lift the soft, saffron
silk mask of wajah
there is only muka.

Anita Patel

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.