Vektor Nihil

Ketika menunggu, menunggu dalam diam

di bawah cahaya dalam kegelapan

di tengah rusuh bersama harmoni

di antara mimpi atas kenyataan

Saat menunggu, menunggu bersama tabuh genderang

Nada-nada digenjring

Tali senar ditarik kencang

Tapi kekencangan tidak berujar

Percuma

Tetap aku menunggu, menunggu dalam diam

dalam kontemplasi

susun intervensi

kenihilan


(Yogyakarta, 2014)

Sedikit Lagi

Beri aku sedikit waktu

tuk pastikan ku mampu;

beri aku cinderamata

yang tak bisikkan rahasia;

beri aku tatapan

muatkan harapan;

untuk

miliki dirimu.


(Jakarta, 2013)

Unsaid love: "Yellow Chrysanthemum"

It was a fine afternoon. I was walking home from work under the warm 3 p.m. sun when I saw a man kneeling on the greens behind an open light-brown fence. He was gardening.

I slowed down and tried to get a better look of what he was doing. He was trimming the bushes.

I realized something. His hands were so rough -it was big and bumpy, with many cuts. I was mystified by how his rough hands grow such beautiful colors.

But I walked past him anyway.

He was just an ordinary gardener, I thought.

Days flew. I hadn't walked pass that place for days. I decided to take a brief stroll that weekend, under the clear-blue 3 p.m. sky, just to see if the gardener was there. I thought I was just a little curious about his hands.

The gardener was there.

He was holding a handful of seeds. His rough hands looked like they were about to crush those offspring.

I shivered at the thought of it.

But he was just an ordinary gardener, I thought.

I was about to leave,

when he called me,

and handed me a small, dirty bag.

   "I think you'd love this flower, Miss."

I received the bag in bewilderment.

   "Thank you," I murmured. And I went home.

I opened the package right away as soon as I got home, and pour everything into an unused flower pot.

   "Let's see how it turns out."

For days I just put the pot under the sun and give a little water once in a while.

Sprouts started to grow.

I didn't know why but I wanted to tell the gardener the sprouts made it.

And so I visited that place

   "The seeds grow sprouts."

   "That's great! Please bring it over so I can check on it."

I went home with a smile.

   "Are you a gardener?" I asked the next day.

   "Yes. I come from a family of plant-lover, and this garden is my father's Eden."

   "I see. It must be amazing."

   "You can come inside if you want. Lots of beautiful flowers."

And lots of beauties indeed.

I couldn't resist not coming since. I'd grown to love the flowers. Sometimes the gardener would gave me a hug-able bunch of lilies, or roses, or baby's breath to take home.

I often watched him work. Planted something, trimmed some leaves, watered from corners to corners.

I looked at his hands. They didn't look so rough, after all. They seemed gentle, instead. And I thought the flowers thought so too.

Now he didn't look so ordinary to me.

One day I visited him like usual. But he was nowhere to be seen.

I brought my ready-to-bloom yellow flower pot. He promised to give some minerals so it would grow even more beautiful.

I walked towards the back of the garden.

And there he was, at the very corner of it.

   "Hi, I've brought my flower pot, as promised."

   "I'm sorry, I'm busy now. Just put your pot over there, will you? Beside the spiders. I'll take care of it."

   "What are you planting?"

   "Just some grass."

I left in confusion.

   "Hi, have you put some vitamins on my flowers?" I came the next day.

   "Sorry, I haven't had the time to. Just come tomorrow, I'll be tending to it."

Again, I left. This time I was sad.

   "Are you still busy?" I asked, after many next visits of disappointment.

   "Yes, my dear.."

   "But you promised."

   "But I'm still busy. Some plants are sick. They need me."

And I was sick of waiting, too. I took my sad-looking pot, and stomped in anger.

I thought he was no ordinary gardener. I thought he cared about my flower pot. And me.

After all, he was the one who gave it to me. I didn't like people giving me false hopes.

Finally, the flower bloomed. It was indeed beautiful.

But what is beauty without a willing spectator.

And what is love without a devoted admirer.

So I decided to give the flower pot back.

I realized, the flower had never stood for itself.

   "It blooms beautifully, but I don't think I love it."

   "So you don't like it, my dear?"

   "I do. I just can't seem to love it. I'm giving it back to you."

   "Well then.."

   "By the way, you never told me what it's called."

   "It's a yellow Chrysanthemum."

   "Oh."

It was a slighted love after all.

As the Chrysanthemum grew and bloomed, there was a necessity to decline any amorous advances.

Brief sweet beginnings.

And in time, I'll learn not to miss them.

Unsaid love: goodbye, light

I sit in desperation, in hopelesness, in vain. The body laid in front of me is stiff, rising and falling together with me. Beauty was once there in the eyes of the beholder. But to me, there is more to what the eyes see.

I close my eyes. I hold her left hand. I feel the coldness of our wedding ring strikes into my heart. I feel beauty through her thin fingers, through her callous hands that dilligently caress every flowers she planted. I feel beauty through her bones that gently rock my children to sleep. I feel beauty through her skin that touches my face everytime I bid goodbye. My senses feel her beauty.

I look at her face. Her light is fading. My sight is fading too. But as everything fades, light pierces though my eyes. I blinked. And I know it's time. I draw closer to her lit face. She shines for the last time. God permits one last light.

"You have felt more pain than my soul can bear. Now I won't hold onto your presence. I will release your sufferings. I will hold our kids along with our memories of you. No worries. I'm letting you go."  

With my last whispery breath, her cheek falls to mine. I kiss her ear. I stroke her dark hair and lift my face. I see light falls on her forehead. I kiss the light. And I kiss goodbye.

Date a Musician

(I was going to try to keep this gender-neutral, but the constant use of “they” bogged it down after a while, so I kept it feminine like the original- which is also fabulous, and right here, if anyone’s curious).

Date a musician. Date someone who spends her money on Bernstein and Karajan recordings instead of clothes, who has problems with bookshelf space because of all of her sheet music. Date someone who chooses Bach over Beyonce and Schubert over Shakira, whose JB is Johannes Brahms, not Justin Beiber.

Find a musician. You’ll know she is one because she’ll always have an etude book shoved into her bag. She’s the one whose fingers are tapping quietly on the table during class, refusing to pull themselves away from the snare drum part of Ravel’s Bolero, which, inside her head, she’s playing back in entirety to kill time before she can leave and practice. You see the weird chick on the subway, dragging around the mysterious black case? That’s her. She’ll drag it anywhere she needs to go, the looks of curiosity she’ll get from passersby will bounce right off of her.

She’s the one with the headphones and the study score, sitting alone in the coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek into her mug, it’s been empty for ages. In half an hour, she’ll leave for rehearsal, and that cup of coffee will get her through the day. But she hasn’t bothered to refill it- she’s following the score, lost in the world of the composer’s making. Sit down, if you’re feeling bold. She’ll probably glare at you, most musicians don’t really like being interrupted. Ask her how she feels about the piece. Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you think of The Rite of Spring. Ask her which is her favorite Beethoven symphony. Understand that if she says she listens to 12-tone serialist pieces for a good time, she’s probably just trying to sound cultured. Bring up Clara Schumann and prepare to have your ears talked off.

It can be pretty easy to date a musician. Buy her tickets to the symphony for birthdays, Christmas, and anniversaries. In return, she’ll give you the gift of music- whether it’s in the form of the collection of etudes she frets over daily, or the constant stream of recordings playing from her hefty iTunes library.

She’ll introduce you to Messaien and Mussorgsky, Schoenberg and Strauss, Ives and Ibert, Respighi and Rimsky-Korsakov. Let her pull you into her musical world. Embrace her enthusiasm. Understand that she realizes not everyone will appreciate Shostakovich the way she does, but also know that she doesn’t care. She’s got to get her thrills somehow, and if she can’t stick it to the man the way she wants to, at least she can live vicariously through the music of somebody who did.

Fight with her. Challenge her. Don’t tolerate her mood swings, pull her out of her artistic blocks. Give her hell when she won’t practice. Give her a challenge. Give her dynamics, give her modulation, give her passion. With even basic knowledge of music theory, she’ll know that the non-harmonic tones are the ones responsible for the beauty of every piece, that every suspension has both a preparation and a resolution, that sometimes the key changes will catch her off guard, but of course, since she’s known all of her scales and arpeggios front to back for years and years, she’ll be able to adapt.

Watch life fail her. Watch her lose the audition, watch her bomb her concerto competition, watch as her favorite orchestral solo is passed off to somebody else. Watch her reeds wear out, watch her strings snap, watch as her instrument cracks from the cold. Watch life drag her along for days in a minor key. Watch her wait, sitting with bated breath, holding on, just for the tiny possibility of a picardy third.

Why won’t she give up? Well, musicians may not be fearless, but they’re strong. They understand that the dissonance will do nothing but make the resolution more worthwhile, more touching or powerful.

If you find a musician, keep her close. When you hear her at 2 AM, sobbing over the one passage in the Mozart concerto that she just can’t seem to perfect, make her a cup of tea. Let her play it once more, and then take her out of the practice room and put on one of her favorite string quartets. Hold her. Watch as the music permeates her brain and her soul, watch it rejuvinate and reinspire her. Help her come up with a plan of attack for when she picks up the same piece again the next morning.

You’ll propose after an NY Phil concert. Or on the way to one of her gigs. Or perhaps very casually, the next time she finishes a practice session.

She’ll make you understand Berlioz’s idée fixe. You’ll attend every single one of her concerts, but recognize that not even you will be able to reach her when she’s wrapped up in her music. When she plays the New World Symphony, she’s homesick. When she plays Tchaikovsky, she’s gay. When she plays Beethoven, she’s deaf. When she plays Schumann, she’s bipolar and schizophrenic. She may sometimes be distant, transfixed on her work, or hard to understand, and at times her enthusiasm may be inaccessible to you. That’s okay. Perhaps, eventually, you’ll walk the cold winters of your old age together, and she’ll sing Winterreise under her breath as you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a musician because you deserve one. If all you’re willing to hear is pop and I-V-vi-IV, you’re better off alone. But if you want a life full of passion and music and unpredictability, go find an instrumentalist. Go date a musician.

Or better yet…become one.

Adapted from http://gershwinning.tumblr.com/post/55087147834/date-a-musician-in-the-style-of-date-a-girl-who

More of you

Give me a little time
I need to make it fine

Give me a little token
Of those not spoken

Give me a little glance
So I know there's a chance

Of having

A little more of you

Start Anew: Unveiled

My life as a writer begins with a sundry pieces of fragments, leading to assured strides of turning into a real writer

Start Anew

Yes, I am starting anew. I have been absent for approximately half a year and now I am starting anew. There is a major change of vision for my blog (will tell later), but anyway I am going to just start writing again -my long forgotten love. Writing is never an easy thing. Writing, considered as a form of art, requires emotion and a great deal of thinking. I have a problem with both, apparently.

My cancer constellation says that I am moody and sensitive. I have difficulties in keeping a routine and prioritising my assignments. In short, my mom would say, "Hey artist, drag yourself outta bed, start eating breakfast at 8 and not 11, and write something!" or "What's wrong with you? A second ago you were jumping all around like chimps and now you're as dead as a stone." Yeah my mom. The person who gives so much encouragement to my writing development and yet pretty much annoyed with the process.

The ability to think has been given to men by God, differing men from other species on planet Earth, and enabling them to develop themselves and carry out the duty of taking a good care of the mother Earth. A man without thoughts is no man at all. My problem is, I think too much. About the "wrong" stuffs. Focused thinking has been my long-standing problem. My mind is an eager traveller and it overtakes me. So writing a blog is difficult for me, because it requires you to sit down and think of what you are going to write, and to keep yourself focused (my attention span is awful; you can ask my teachers).

However despite all things, even with the mind of an eager traveller, I am ready to start anew, and to call myself a(n) (amateur) writer! Godspeed!

Love,

The eager writer

An Auld Lang Syne to Cherish

Continuities

by Walt Whitman
(1819-1892)

---

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,
No birth, identity, form--no object of the world.
Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;
Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.
Ample are time and space--ample the fields of Nature.
The body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers left from earlier fires,
The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;
The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;
To frozen clods ever the spring's invisible law returns,
With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.

This poem I first encountered in the movie "The Notebook" is indeed a life's representation of continuous hope and faith that all things will always come out good in God's time. When you feel lost; when you feel that you are just an object of disposal; or when you feel that you do not know who you really are in the midst of artificial society, you should not let anxiety overcome you. It is easy to be overwhelmed by your own fear and doubts. However, one thing that can help you find a turning point is hope.

Hope is what keeps human alive and "flame again". Hope is what motivates us to wake up every morning, knowing that the darkness enveloping us will be torn down and give rise to the sun. Hope motivates us to work things out in ways possible for us to do. Hopes without action is naught; it is a fresh seed left burnt and dead under the sun.

After hope comes faith. When you have hoped and done whatever is best for your hope to come true, faith comes in the form of believing and surrendering to God that all you have done will bear good fruits. To every "frozen clod" there will always be the return of spring's abundance and summer joy. To every obstacle there will always be enlightenment and at the end, an auld lang syne to cherish.

Life is a cycle of continuous hope and faith, and nothing is ever lost in that cycle. What you think is lost actually metamorphoses to a new thing through awakening life experiences. People say they loose money; they seldom appreciate the notion that by loosing money, they learn to be more careful. People say they loose their loved ones; it is just physical and nothing from their lovely memories will ever be lost. Maybe by loosing their loved ones, they acquire the enlightenment to make an effort to cherish the next in line. So many losts in fact give way to a better understanding of and better things to your life and others that intersect your path.

So never let yourself down in what seems to be a "shifted sphere", "dimming light", or "frozen clods" for shifted sphere will give rise to new lives, dimming light is just momentary, and that frozen clods will always melt and be green again.

How do I love thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Elizabeth B. Browning
-Sonnets from the Portuguese

It's St. Valentine's day! I do not particularly celebrate Valentine, nor do my loved ones, but I agree that it is the one day that human, for once in their graciously given 365 days can agree on one occasion to love their fellow and forget how they tend to step on one another (Oh sorry for being so skeptical and depressing on this very lovely day).

Anyway, I especially love this piece, which I think is suitable for expressing what Valentine is about -love- because of its sincere and passionate tone. Saying "I love thee" alone sounds simple but in fact it's not an easy thing to do. In my family, I have never heard my dad say "I love you" to my mom. I reckon that my mom is not that lovey-dovey type and that she does not even consider saying "I love you" as a crucial part of our parent-daughter relationship. However, I do not mean that expressing love has to be through words, as well as through a celebrated (commercial) event like Valentine -it can be in any way. My mom is one of a kind. She transmits her love to my brother and I through her supportive phone calls, constant delivery of vitamins, snacks, frozen food, and many other edible stuffs, and various other things she considers best for us. I know just how much she loves me.

Even if I do not celebrate Valentine, I celebrate its values -the values of love, appreciation, and respect that human should apply everyday, not only on this one specific day. So therefore, instead of sending chocolate to my boyfriend today (which he do not like anyway), I prefer doing things that we both love, which, anyway, have been done practically everyday. I texted my parents and brother too. So for me, it's St. Valentine's day everyday!

Dozen Roses

Dozen Roses - a beautiful poem by Shibles.

A dozen roses,
I give to you my friend.
A red rose for the friendship we share,
A purple rose for the touch,
A claret rose for the trust we share,
A pink rose for the kindness,
An orange rose for the comfort given,
A blue rose for the laughter,
A white rose for the commpassion,
A violet rose for the dreams we share,
A magenta rose for the deep respect,
A coral rose for the love we feel,
A yellow rose for bringing me sunshine.
And the last rose,
For it stands so tall and proud,
A rainbow rose that represents you,
My best friend of all.


Jameaka Shibles 

I have never heard of the poet's name, but I think that this simple poem shows how much she loves her friends and how much intimate they are, sharing almost all of their life aspects. Besides that, I like how she visualize the roses in many different colors; it is indeed a lovely imagery.

LOVE

Lie

Oh soul, bear myself not

Venture my heart in vain

Exquisitely mental, all in joy and bliss



"I think....."
Lies, be it small, big, white, or black, exist in every form of relationship. Lies sucks; lies hurt; lies destroy; lies are unforgive/forgettable; lies are sin. However in love, no matter how severe the scar being left by the lies is, human's mind are not sane enough to just let it go. Some even live the pain in joy as if that's gonna feed them and satisfy their appetite. Exquisitely mental!
Human are insanely fooled by love!

"So.......what do you think?"