Conversations about Death

Life passes swiftly, but not the buried arrow

Death is the finish, but doesn't end with a final whistle

Between racking one's bones, newsclips of war and daily chatter

We are flung about and we make love

And ready ourselves to face new uncertainties

If only a person could choose the best way to die

I would die like a fighting cock, quickly, and not in bed

You mean with your body drenched in blood?

Yes, and what's wrong that?

I thought I saw death standing stalwart in the doorway

I thought I heard, "She has almost no pulse"

And then, in an instant, darkness came and everything vanished

But the next morning there was the sun, the morning paper

And the verge of something I've never understood

I bow and I kneel, my two hands clasped

And trembling pray with a beggar's determination

Don't take him, I whisper, don't take him

How can I be so fickle, and am I that contemptible

Life is the best part of death

and you are the best part of the dream

I never knew

why they didn't track you down

or your grave

Though I did seek myself

in you

in fissures of time

Forever asking but never finding

I was dragged asunder by the hurly-burly of the world

on my side is no one

on your side didn't history once stand

albeit with no rifle or loudspeaker in hand

I see terror flashing in a thousand pairs of eyes

My senses collect the stream of anxiety that flows in birds' wings

My music records the trickle of tears that fall before D-Day

While once again death floats on the horizon, even though -- too late -- the order comes to get a move on

In my anxiety is a person who coughs as he sears the flesh

In my pain is a person who laughs as he casts calamity down

In my longing I recall the peaks of Pamir and the rippling cool waters of the Amu Darya

In my restlessness I hear the pounding of hooves as Attila speeds his horses on

In a chain of festivities I feel death suddenly disappear, though the hems of his robes remain visible

Whether or not I have a pupil's soul

My body will go on hunting

Not averse to cross the sea

To mingle in the human tide

Til which time death suddenly beckons

And my body straight-a-way returns the call

Leaving my soul astonished, so unwilling to believe

From the nape of my neck to the tips of my fingers

From my heart to my each and every pore

Fear wears death's mask

And pounces so stealthily

I explore each day

Trying to discern the final resting place, located not so far away

I cross boundless uncertainty

absolutely alone, meaningless in absolute silence

-- Isma Sawitri

Translated by John H. McGlynn

(Taken from Menagerie 2 by courtesy of the Lontar Foundation, Jakarta)