By Chairil Anwar
I
Is this journey far?
Just the twinkle of an eye! – How could it be any longer!
Then what?
Of the falling leaves you ask for yourself,
And of the soft sound which becomes a melody!
Does it remain only as a memento?
Look at the woman no longer gazing upward
Nor wistful, the stars have vanished!
So how long is this journey?
Could be a century… oh just the blink of an eye!
A journey for what?
Ask my childhood home which is mute!
My ancestors frozen there!
Is someone touching me to follow?
Is someone lost?
Ah, answer for yourself! – I am still
Homeless and forlorn………
Heaven
By Chairil Answar
Just as my mother and my grandmother too
And as seven generations before
I too ask to be allowed into heaven
which say Masyumi and Muhammadiyah flows with rivers of milk
and is full of beautiful maidens
But there’s a voice inside me weighing this up,
which dares to scoff: Can heaven really be
barren of the waters of the blue oceans,
of the soft touch of every harbor how come?
And also who can say for sure
there definitely awaits beautiful maidens
sounds like they have trouble swallowing like Nina, have Jati’s wry glance?
Malang, 28/2-’47
Published in Pantja Raja, p. 338.
Photo: From the Dutch National Archives’ Elsevier Photo Collection this image by an unknown Dutch National News Agency (ANP) photographer is described as “The provisional [Indonesian] Republican Parliament (Komite National Indonesia Pusat or KNIP) met in Malang from 25 February to 5 March 1947. Prime Minister Sutan Sjahrir is seen here outlining government policy.” 25 February 1947.
Source: Dutch National Archives
Photo: Indian troops with four armed Indonesians captured at Bekassi before the village was burnt as a reprisal for the murder of five members of the Royal Air Force and twenty Maharatta riflemen whose Dakota transport aircraft crash landed near the village.
Interesting background wiki article on Basuki Resobowo.
