ON ONE OF YOUR POEMS

Dear Poet:
I heard that you were still alive, still working at the same place. I haven’t thought about you for quite some time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t either.
I merely spend a lot of time in front of my computer this holiday, trying to churn out a novel, actually. You know that I am no resourceful person, and my idea of getting inspirations for the novel is to grope around my hard disk for half an hour everyday.

Yes, you heard it right. Much as I’d like to say that I find inspiration during my solitaire walks through a narrow beaten path away from my neighbourhood, or during an enchanting conversation with a charming stranger over the internet, the fact remains that there is nothing romantic with my idea of seeking an inspiration.

Anyway.

As I groped around earlier today, I found this poem you gave me a long time ago. As I remember it was inside a black floppy you put on my desk one night, and on the label you had written “Cream and Stuff and Everything Nice.”

During that time, you and I exchanged floppy disks almost every night. I was showing you my mediocre short stories, and you showed me not only your stories both in English and Indonesian, but also my favorite: your beautiful poetry, written in impeccable English, ingenious craft I had never imagined could be spun by a native Indonesian. One day I gave you a disk full of my favorite poems, because I didn’t have any more short stories to show you. (I didn’t want to admit that I wasn’t quite a productive writer as you were.) The poems included works of Juana Ines de La Cruz, and WB Yeats, and on the label of the disk I had neatly written “Cream and Stuff and Everything Nice.”

So finding a black floppy on my desk with a label that bore the exactly same words kinda intrigued me. I stared at your slanting handwriting, pondering what was your idea of “cream” and “stuff” and “everything nice.”

And here was I what found inside that floppy:


AN ENIGMA

Might it be a sin, august damsel
Myriad moves fulfilled to flee conjugal carousal?
Believing it will last, being beguiled it’s a must
Colourless life looms lurking to lam me to dust
Alleviating kisses, damsel, much I long for
Offered blissful bosom for my head to anchor
Crystalline eyes like those in days of yore
Entirely engulfed me bringing forth sweet sore
Wonderful tigress of one and twenty
Especially born in the eighth lunation
Apostlebird sang in the annus mirabilis of four and seventy
Satisfactorily educated with Science of Forces inclination
Enthusiastically yet pursuing the path of Muse

M.A, 28/6/2002

A hint: read consecutively first letter of the first line,
second letter of the second line, etc.


With my limited English, at first I didn’t quite get your meaning. All I knew was this: you had strived to put not only my name, but also every personal fact of mine into this beautiful jewel of poetry. I gaped at it for a long time

When you called later that night, asking whether I had read the poem, I giggled nervously saying yes, I have, and by the way, how many girls have you ever written poetry for?

And your replies were ‘where have you been all my life’ and ‘you should have crossed my path sooner’ and I thought about roaming the earth for the rest of my life thinking of endless ‘what-ifs’.

Do you remember all these?

Dear Poet:
I heard that you were still alive, still working at the same place. I haven’t thought about you for quite some time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t either.

I was merely groping around my computer’s guts looking for inspirations for my novel when I stumbled upon your words.

What do I know?

Reading your words is a much enjoyable way to get inspired compared to long solitaire walks, and an enchanting conversation with a charming stranger over the internet. Reading your words reminds me to the feeling I got when I was much younger, when I had just woken up one morning and remembered that it was the start of a long holiday. It is comparable to listening to Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring and Canon in D and Air in G String and Moonlight Sonata. And actually that is what I am doing now, listening to all those, feeling happy and serene that we had the chance to meet each other and do things as stupid as exchanging floppy disk every night.

Do you know?
I have a folder here inside my computer, full of your stories and poetry, and I think I am gonna print the poems you wrote for me and stick them on my desk so that I could look at them from time to time, especially when I am down, which happens a lot of times lately.

Dear Poet:
I heard that you were still alive, still working at the same place. I haven’t thought about you for quite some time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t either.

I was merely groping around my computer’s guts looking for inspirations for my novel when I stumbled upon your words.

And suddenly I thought of you, and the way things that could go wrong, always would.