PESAN YANG MENJADI SUNGAI
Puisi: Leni Marlina
Pesanku jatuh ke layar ponselmu,
seperti rintik yang menembus atap surau senja;
hurufnya menyala di dada hujan,
katanya bergetar di antara bulir padi
yang belum sempat dipanen dan dibawa pulang.
Ibu—
engkau berdiri di ambang kabut Marapi,
di tanganmu terhampar suara tanah
yang baru disapa sunyi selepas hujan.
Di matamu, sawah menjadi cermin
yang memantulkan wajah langit
sedang mencari anaknya yang hilang.
Pesanku mengalir, Ibu,
meluncur di bawah akar bambu,
menyusuri batu-batu yang pernah kita duduki bersama;
ia menjadi gemericik yang hafal suaramu,
menyebut namaku dalam bahasa air
yang hanya tanah Agam mengerti.
Engkau tak menjawab—
namun aku membayangkan embun di jendela rumah gadang
menulis balik pesanku dengan cahaya:
“Anakku, jangan takut pada jarak—
ia hanyalah jalan pulang yang menua.”
Dan aku pun tahu:
pesan ini bukan sekadar kilatan listrik.
Ia tubuh yang bernapas dalam doa,
ia getar bumi di bawah langkahmu,
ia arus rindu yang mencari muara
di pangkuanmu yang tak bertepi.
Ketika malam menua di lembah dan ladang di kampung kita,
aku melihat dari jendela kota—
sungai kecil menyeberangi jalan raya,
membawa suaramu dalam bahasa air,
menyebut namaku di antara kabut.
Dan di atas jembatan bintang,
aku melihat sungai itu menuju laut:
menjadi cahaya yang pulang
ke rahimmu, Ibu—
dan ke rahim bumi yang menunggu.
Melbourne, Australia, 2013
Tentang Penulis: Leni Marlina – Penulis, Penyair, dan Akademisi
Leni Marlina, lahir di Baso, Agam, Sumatera Barat, dan berdomisili di Padang, merupakan penulis dan penyair yang aktif sebagai anggota SATU PENA Sumatera Barat sejak 2022 serta terafiliasi dengan sejumlah komunitas dan organisasi kepenulisan, literasi dan sastra. Karya terbarunya berupa kumpulan puisi tunggal bilingual: The “Beloved Teachers” (2025), “L-BEAUMANITY: Love, Beauty and Humanity” (2025), dan tiga volume buku terbaru “English Stories for Literacy” (2024 & 2025).
Sejak 2006, hampir dua dekade, Leni sudah mengabdikan diri sebagai dosen tetap di Program Studi Bahasa dan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni, Universitas Negeri Padang, Di luar akademik, ia aktif sebagai penulis lepas, editor, dan kontributor media lokal, nasional, maupun internasional, dengan puisinya dapat diakses publik melalui Media Suara Anak Negeri News dan media lainnya.
Meyakini menulis sebagai medium berbagi dan inspirasi, Leni mendirikan beberapa komunitas literasi digital, antara lain PPIPM-Indonesia (Pondok Puisi Inspirasi Pemikiran Masyarakat), Poetry-Pen International Community (PPIC), Literature Talk Community (Littalk-C), dan EL4C (English Languange Learning Literacy and Literature), yang menjembatani sastra dan literasi lintas generasi.
Atas dedikasi dan kiprah literasinya, Leni dianugerahi Penulis Terbaik 2025 oleh organisasi penulis SATU PENA Sumatera Barat dalam Festival Literasi Internasional Minangkabau ke-3 (IMLF-3), serta menerima ACC International Literary Prize dari Presiden ACC Shanghai Huiyu International Literary Creative Media Centre.
Puisi di atas adalah satu dari kumpulan puisi Leni Marlina tentang kerinduan kepada Ibu dan tanah air yang ia tulis sepanjang tahun 2011-2013, ketika ia menjalani tugas belajar Master of Writing and Literature (Literary Study, Creative Writing and Children’s Literature) di Australia dengan beasiswa dari pemerintah Indonesia.
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THE MESSAGE THAT TURNED INTO A RIVER
Poem by Leni Marlina
My message falls upon your phone screen,
like a drizzle slipping through the roof
of a twilight surau;
its letters glow upon the chest of rain,
its voice trembles among rice grains
not yet harvested,
not yet carried home.
Mother—
you stand at the edge of Marapi’s mist,
in your hands lie the voice of the earth
just greeted by silence after rain.
In your eyes, the fields turn to mirrors,
reflecting the sky’s weary face
searching for its long-lost child.
My message flows, Mother,
sliding beneath bamboo roots,
tracing stones where we once sat together;
it becomes a murmur that remembers your voice,
calling my name in the language of water—
a tongue only Agam’s soil understands.
You do not answer—
yet I imagine the dew
on the window of our rumah gadang
writing back to me in light:
“My child, do not fear the distance—
it is only the road home growing old.”
And then I understand:
this message is no mere spark of current.
It is a body breathing within prayer,
a tremor of earth beneath your steps,
a stream of longing searching for its estuary
in your boundless embrace.
When night ages over the valleys and fields of our village,
I gaze from my city window—
a small river crosses the highway,
carrying your voice in the language of water,
whispering my name through the mist.
And upon the bridge of stars,
I see that river drifting to the sea—
becoming light returning home
to your womb, Mother—
and to the waiting womb of the earth.
Melbourne, Australia, 2013
About the Author: Leni Marlina – Writer, Poet, and Scholar
Leni Marlina was born in Baso, Agam, West Sumatra, and resides in Padang. She is a poet and writer who has been an active member of SATU PENA West Sumatra since 2022, and is affiliated with numerous literary and literacy communities. Her recent bilingual poetry collections include The Beloved Teachers (2025), L-BEAUMANITY: Love, Beauty and Humanity (2025), and the three-volume series English Stories for Literacy (2024 & 2025).
Since 2006, for nearly two decades, Leni has served as a permanent lecturer in the English Language and Literature Department at the Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Padang. Beyond academia, she is a freelance writer, editor, and contributor to local, national, and international media, with her poems featured in Suara Anak Negeri News and various literary platforms.
Believing that writing is a medium of compassion and inspiration, she founded several digital literary communities—PPIPM-Indonesia (Pondok Puisi Inspirasi Pemikiran Masyarakat), Poetry-Pen International Community (PPIC), Literature Talk Community (Littalk-C), and EL4C (English Language Learning, Literacy, and Literature Community)—which bridge literature and literacy across generations.
For her dedication and contribution to the literary world, Leni received the Best Writer Award 2025 from SATU PENA West Sumatra during the 3rd Minangkabau International Literacy Festival (IMLF-3), and the ACC International Literary Prize from the President of the ACC Shanghai Huiyu International Literary Creative Media Centre.
The poem above is one of Leni Marlina’s works written between 2011–2013 during her Master’s studies in Writing and Literature (covering Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Children’s Literature) in Australia under a scholarship from the Indonesian government.
