A Child's Prayer and Other Poems
Arif Fitra Kurniawan
Translated into English by David Setiawan
A CHILD’S PRAYER
“Give me calamity!” he said
after a live bullet snatched a parable
out of the child’s eyelids
The black hole full of still-wet blood
reminds us of the grief
that magnified Isa
But the child doesn’t cry
The child just sits there and rubs
a life path that’s dried on his knees
Grass and foulness grow similarly uneven
when he wants to tell their tale
Because all his beliefs are now orphaned
The child has forgotten about how black and how green
an intertwined initial state of love’s strain
Once again, while a bird happens to
set its chirps close to his ear,
he draws a time which immediately explodes
its shards freezing exactly in the middle
of your palms
BORROWING YOUR LAND
It’s been a long time, borrowing your land. But still,
my hand won’t ever find its confidence; someday soon,
it might be paralyzed like a grimming time
slowly bending within a farmer’s dream?
It’s already reached the tongue:
putrid sweats I’ve planted and that now grow firm.
But fate tightly clutches your utterance
with a weighing that will never end
So the Word floated. Then broke and fell
upon your hardening eyelid
as it gazes at the vast pointlessness
THE COARSE PALM OF A PSYCHIC
When it happens, her coarse palms
cover your face, and the world
gradually opens up
You comprehend the way out and then you start
whispering to blackened things
touched by Kerala’s tail of hate
I’ll remember the name of a morning when you could see
yourself saying
: squeeze. Squeeze my paradise as
you do your mother’s rotten melons
A blind spectator enters,
bothered by the fractured spots of
his own darkness
History, in all his hatred, has to summon again
name after name of the dead souls
TELLING OF VILLAGES
Mama, where will those trees go? Mama,
the morning rushes out as it hurriedly
pries the dried soil out of my boot’s grooves
I can’t finish the work by myself,
it’s like pulling out the bones when the pain
is still attached to humanity’s skin and flesh
Not without your compassion which has whitened
my tongue’s tip
You laugh at that particular word—humanity—
I deliberately gnaw it out to reenable our sense of sorrow
And to make each person remember again
how useless highways and skyscrapers are,
and the broken frames of family portraits,
in guiding us back to our home
But it is not only this time that you urge me
to be faithful; to wear again and again
the worn-out mask of deceitful happiness
Disguised ones fall upon the grasses and bushes,
lurking my future
: should they break apart, could you tell
one paddy field dike from another
to lead you back?
You accuse one path of being guiltier
In this village, Mama, hope seems
like compassion passed down through the story you told me,
written on a leaf full of mistakes
A WEAPON AGAINST ALL THINGS
My body and memories are turning green,
crushed by the pain of remembering
the light in your eyes
Solitude sends wars and ghosts
from the depths of swamps
What is clear—a shadowy memory—your embrace
is a weapon against all those things
Destiny often succeeds in dragging each of us
to the edges of our sanity
While the sky and sea and the air are burning,
still, I cannot turn my back
The here and now that shatters
our left fists, once whole, is no longer
what we desire
But the monstrous saw in my dreams,
now needs nothing more
SEEKING REFUGE
Not there yet, at a colder hollow
of all holes you’ve created to serve you;
you tell us to keep going back at stones
that threaten to crush our story
Albeit we’ve decorated our children’s throats
with hoarse and high-pitched voices
that even saintly men lack.
Now they are whining for shoes and hair ribbons
they’ve already thrown to seas,
asking ceaselessly all the while
: Baba, will we still be able to sing
potong bebek angsa there?
© Arif Fitra Kurniawan
English translation © David Setiawan
MUNAJAT SEORANG ANAK KECIL
DAN PUISI-PUISI LAINNYA
Arif Fitra Kurniawan
MUNAJAT SEORANG ANAK KECIL
Beri aku marabahaya, diucapkannya itu
Seusai peluru timah merampas tamsil dari
Lingkaran matanya
Lubang hitam di sana menyisakan darah basah
Dan mengingatkan kita pada duka
Yang pernah membesarkan Isa
Tapi dia tidak menangis
Dia cuma duduk dan menyentuh
Jalan hidup yang mengering di lututnya
Rumput dan keburukan sama-sama tak bisa utuh
Ketika ingin dia kisahkan
Sebab semua yang diyakininya kini piatu
Ia lupa bagaimana hijau bagaimana hitam
Pernah saling membelit muasal percintaan
Sekali lagi lewat burung yang kebetulan
Menaruh cicicuitnya dekat telinga,
Dia menggambar waktu yang meledak lantas
Membekukan serpihannya persis di tengah-tengah
Telapak tanganmu
MEMINJAM TANAHMU
Lama meminjam tanahmu tetap saja membuat
bilah lenganku tak percaya diri, kelak akankah
bisa lumpuh seperti waktu suram yang pelan-pelan
melengkung di dalam mimpi seorang petani
Sudah sampai ke lidahnya juga,
amis peluh yang aku tanam dan tumbuh kekar
Tapi nasib yang mencengkeram sabdamu
tak juga kunjung selesai mereka takar
Wahyu pun mengambang. Pecah dan jatuh
mengenai pelupuk mataku yang jadi keras
memandang lapang kesia-siaan
TANGAN KASAP SEORANG CENAYANG
Di kejadian ini telapak tangan kasapnya
menutup wajahmu, dan dunia pelan-pelan
terbuka
Kau paham jalan keluarnya dan mulai
berbisik-bisik kepada benda-benda menghitam
bekas disentuh ekor kebencian Kerala
Akan aku ingat nama sebuah pagi
di mana mampu kau saksikan
dirimu sendiri berkata
: peras, peraslah surgaku seperti
sepasang melon busuk ibumu
Seorang penonton buta masuk
terusik oleh patahan kegelapan
yang dimilikinya
Sejarah, begitu benci, mesti memanggil
nama mayat siapa lagi
MENGISAHKAN KAMPUNG
Ibu, akan ke manakah pohon-pohon itu, Ibu
Pagi bergegas ingin menyungkil
segumpal tanah di sepatu bootku
Tak bisa aku selesaikan sendiri mencabut
tulang-belulang yang separuh lebih perihnya
masuk menancapi peri kemanusiaan
Tidak tanpa welas asihmu yang telah memutihkan
ujung lidahku
Kau tertawa. Mendengar kata kemanusiaan
Sengaja kukerat agar kita bisa bersedih sekali lagi
Dan membuat tiap-tiap orang kembali ingat
betapa jalan-jalan tol, gedung-gedung tinggi,
serta bingkai foto-foto keluarga yang pecah tak membawa
kita pulang ke mana-mana
Tapi bukan sekali ini kau memaksaku
agar aku setia kenakan lagi saja
kebahagiaan yang kerap menipu
Yang menyaru jatuh ke rumput dan semak-semak
bersembunyi demi mengintai masa depanku
: jika kelak ada yang pecah, kautahu manakah
antara kiri dan kanan dari pematang sawah
Bisa kautuduh jauh lebih bersalah
Di kampung ini, Ibu, harapan terdengar
menyerupai belas kasihan yang turun-temurun
kauceritakan dalam selembar kekeliruan
SENJATA MELAWAN ITU SEMUA
Tubuh dan kenanganku menghijau
dilumat kesakitan mengingat
cahaya mata engkau
Sepi mengirim perang dan hantu-hantu
dari kedalaman rawa-rawa
Cuma bening—bayangan—pelukanmu,
satu-satunya senjata melawan itu semua
Takdir seringkali berhasil menyeret
kita masing-masing ke pinggir
Sementara langit dan laut dan udara ganas
Tetap tak mungkin kupunggungi
Kini yang memecahkan
utuh kepalan tangan kiri kita bukan lagi
cita-cita
Tapi gergaji raksasa yang di tidurku
sudah tak lagi butuh apa-apa
MENGUNGSI
Belum juga sampai ke sana, ke relung yang lebih dingin
dari seluruh liang yang kaubuat untuk menghambamu,
kausuruh kami kembali ke batu-batu yang pernah
mengancam hendak meremukkan kisah kami
Padahal sudah kami dandani tenggorokan anak-anak kami
dengan suara serak tinggi yang bahkan tak pernah dimiliki
oleh para paderi
Kini mereka ribut meminta sepatu dan pita rambut
yang kemarin telanjur mereka buang ke tanjung
sembari ceriwis tak henti bertanya
: Baba, adakah di seberang sana masih bisa kita
lantunkan potong bebek angsa?
© Arif Fitra Kurniawan
ARIF FITRA KURNIAWAN was born in Semarang on June 22, 1985. An avid writer since elementary school, he pens poems, short stories, essays, and children’s stories. A number of his works have been published, in print and online, in many venues, including Suara Merdeka, Jawa Pos, Koran Tempo, Buletin Sastra Pawon, Majalah Basis, Jurnal Tanggomo, and Buletin Hysteria. He participated in the TSI-4 Ternate Conference in 2011, and he was selected to participate in the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival, as well as the 6th Pertemuan Penyair Nusantara (Nusantara Poets’ Gathering) in 2012. His book of poems, Eskapis, was published in 2014. He holds a Master’s Degree in Communication from Diponegoro University and is active in organizations such as Lacikata and Kelab Buku Semarang (The Semarang Book Club). He works at Baca Buku Dulu (Read Books First), a communal space in Semarang that functions as a bookstore, library, and community gathering area, which is rooted in supporting literacy. Connect with him through Instagram at: @bacabukudulu, @pelantang_bacaan.
DAVID SETIAWAN was born in West Java. He studied Russian Literature at Padjadjaran University, as well as Sociology in the Faculty of Social and Political Science at Gajah Mada University, but did not complete his degrees. His foray into translation began in 2012, when he took up translating subtitles, and in 2017, he started translating literary works, including texts by Gordimer, Borges, Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Conrad. In addition to translating, he edits and curates manuscripts for Yogyakarta-based publishers.
JAYU JULI works at the Gudskul Ecosystem art collective (affiliated with RuangRupa-SERRUM-GHH). As an artist, she also has a studio there, at Gudside. With her husband she creates an audiovisual performance project called PlusMinus. Jayu likes to work with watercolor best. See some of her works on Instagram @jayujuliproject and on her website www.jayujulie.id.