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Matthew Caretti

Sumatra

A long flight. Then a longer ride on a local bus. Waterfalls and markets and mosques. The threat of rain before the day’s final call to prayer.

minaret shadow
a Hindu boy waits
for his friend

Waking early the next morning. Monsoon clouds gather on a pink horizon. The sound of scooters rises to the hilltop lodge. Blends with the frogsong.

a line drawn
in water
half the world away

Into the Harau Valley. Here matriarchs own the land. Work its lush fields and paddies. Welcome proud daughters home from school. Invite me for tea.

from my pack
shared relics
of a charmed life

Out again into the humid suck. At the silversmith’s shop, a caged parakeet. She pretends not to notice. The looks and smiles and calls. The playful finger poked into her cage.

CCTV
big brother
misses the sunset

The last night nestled between two active volcanoes. Waking to a rumble. Thunder again. After the deluge, a narrow path around one of the sentinels. Through a bounty of dripping trees. Fruit. Kapok. Cinnamon. All suffused with a trace of sulfur.

rain forest
free-range everything
and me

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About the Author

Matthew Caretti began publishing his poems in 2009, though his fascination with Eastern short-form genres began much earlier. In 2017, he won the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award for Harvesting Stones.