Tok Dalang

With the finest leather from Indonesia, you weave

a puppet with your wrinkled hands, and color

them with dye you bought from India, in a village

that exists in memory but doesn’t have a name.

Moved with your wrinkled hands, a puppet colors

the canvas with its shadows, telling a tale

that doesn’t have a name, but exists in the memory

of your people for as long as time has told.

But telling your story with the shadows, the canvas

hides who you are, oh Tok Dalang, the entertainer

of the people. For as long as time has told, even your

name has been lost beneath the sounds of the gamelan.

Oh Tok Dalang, the entertainer, who are you?

you tell stories from as far as Majapahit and Java

where the lost sounds of the gamelan ring, yet

you seem to never leave the shadows from where

you tell stories. Maybe as far as Majapahit and Java,

People will tell of a man just like you,

And of the shadows that you never seem to leave, where

You told them stories from far, far away.

It is sad, though, that one day, people will forget you,

Your shadows lost in time, a history carved

from stories from long, long ago

when the Tok Dalang used to weave puppets from leather.