Crystal drops swaying,
Softly molten to the shapes.
The water is clear.
Singapore – February 9, 2019 – 15:20
Category Archives: Learning
Many New Years – ranting
All people have their New Years, different way of counting the days. Same number, different start. Javanese have Javanese Year. Muslim have Islamic Year, Hinduism have Hinduism Year. Buddhist have Buddhism Year. Inca-Mayan have their own year that ended with their “aborted” doomsday in 2012. And others do – all of which might be based either on Lunar or Solar calendar – in fact, with the same basis not a few are of different cycles.
It is Chinese New Year today and representing PIG. Year of pig
What does it symbolise? I thought it is a symbol of eat a lot, fat, lazy and slowness of move. But I am wrong, PIG is the symbol of prosperity in Chinese culture. Does it mean this year all of us are gonna be rich? I don’t believe that because if you don’t work or you are not lucky, you won’t have a lot of property and prosperity.
Gosh, the symbol doesn’t work at least for me…. I am still fat and eating a lot, not prosperous yet. Maybe this year? 🙂
Happy Chinese New Year!
Temasek, February 5, 2019 – 7:49pm
Flesh – haiku
Red and white in one.
Would I think of pain and cry?
If they’re not mortal?
Bekasi to Jakarta highway
I saw an open car full of dogs, each of them in small cages. Some of them are barking, most of them lied down cramped inside the thin cages, some of them rested their heads on the cage walls. Not sure where they would be transported, maybe to Sumatra island – based on the car plate number which is BA. I know some people eat dog meat in my country and it is truly a horrible fact.
I hope they are not sent to the lapo (dogmeat stall). I hope they are alive and taken care of well with decent treatment. I feel they are at least HUNGRY and THIRSTY.
Fellow humans, please be human.
January 16, 2019 – on the way from Bekasi to Jakarta
New Year’s Resolution – serious ranting
My home is near the MRT railway, every five minutes two 6-car trains will go to both directions. And, today they do their routine of life. But there is something different, like they know it is almost 2019 and want to celebrate the year exchange.
The trains sound more merrier.
And the vehicles in the crossroad just down floors below run like no energy is lacking or no drowsiness greets the drivers.
Around where I live there are a lot of trees that I hope won’t be cut down for long years to come. I love them as they are the ones making my breath lighter and healthier. And tonight I feel they send out purer air to me.
And there is a reservoir that is cleaned daily by the boatmen on the blue boats. It still looks dark at night but the water reflection is clearer and more magnificent.
All do more magic tonight…. Because it is new year tomorrow. And I am infected by their spirit of best performance of now here and so I want to be in the harmony with Nature now here and next year.
I might not be able to get a mentor that I expected but I will make myself the best mentor for myself to be more professional – clarity on what I do, purity on what I intend. I might not be the best of all but I will make myself the best version of me – committed and true. I might not get everything I wish but I will make myself to get what’s the best I deserve.
Tonight I welcome 2019 at home looking at my plants in the small balcony, going back and forth the fridge to get cool water – I don’t drink beer fyi, seeing all the passers by, enjoying the dogs’ smell from the one living under my balcony. The air, water, cloud, unseen sky, shy rain, greenery in the black black new year’s eve, all people celebrating far away with the fireworks, all the animals with shelters or without, all the blessed life under the sun, and all
To you I wish a….
…. Happy New Year 2019! The best is welcoming you.
I know next year is mine, too.
Temasek – December 31, 2019 – 11:18pm
New Year…. Again? – ranting
December 31, 2018
Last day of 2018
It is another new year tomorrow.
I haven’t even made my resolution.
What resolution? Still need it?
I thought most of my resolution was failure and bursting bubbles,
So better leave 2019 without specific wishes.
Just wanna be a better version of me.
That’s it.
Oh, Life.
You’ve run so fast, dragging me to nowhere but here now.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Live your life to the fullest!
- expecting longer rant tonight 🙂
Temasek – December 31, 2018 – 7:38pm
Space – haiku
A room with so much,
Too much to just move an inch
Can you give me space?
Temasek, December 30, 2018 – 20:12
Renovated – ranting
It is my 3rd visit to Ayutthaya. Three rounds, one hotel – just across a historical wat (temple) at the river bank.
In my first visit in 2017 the wat was clearly seen from my window. White with some unclear yet predictable patch of mould. Beautiful and grand.
The second visit just last August it was being renovated. Covered with green nets and perched by workmen, the wat looked surrendered and retreat.
Now, the renovation is going on. The wat is shiny and white like marble, maybe glazed with porcelain. Hopefully. Yet the green net is still there, workmen are still busy behind the net. Dogs are still barking there maybe shouting at visitors. I don’t even know if visitors are allowed during construction.
Ayutthaya, you don’t fail me.
Ayutthaya – Dec. 26, 2018 – 14:27
Tanka – link to read
I’ve been learning how to write haiku, and now tanka. The link below to learn in simple way.
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The Japanese tanka is a thirty-one-syllable poem, traditionally written in a single unbroken line. A form of waka, Japanese song or verse, tanka translates as “short song,” and is better known in its five-line, 5/7/5/7/7 syllable count form.
One of the oldest Japanese forms, tanka originated in the seventh century, and quickly became the preferred verse form not only in the Japanese Imperial Court, where nobles competed in tanka contests, but for women and men engaged in courtship. Tanka’s economy and suitability for emotional expression made it ideal for intimate communication; lovers would often, after an evening spent together (often clandestinely), dash off a tanka to give to the other the next morning as a gift of gratitude.
In many ways, the tanka resembles the sonnet, certainly in terms of treatment of subject. Like the sonnet, the tanka employs a turn, known as a pivotal image, which marks the transition from the examination of an image to the examination of the personal response. This turn is located within the third line, connecting the kami-no-ku, or upper poem, with the shimo-no-ku, or lower poem.
Many of the great tanka poets were women, among them Lady Akazone Emon, Yosano Akiko, and Lady Murasaki Shikibu, who wrote The Tale of Genji, a foundational Japanese prose text that includes over 400 tanka. English-language writers have not taken to the tanka form in the same way they have the haiku, but there are several notable exceptions, including Amy Lowell, Kenneth Rexroth, Sam Hamill, Cid Corman, and Carolyn Kizer.
There are many excellent anthologies of Japanese verse, most of which feature lengthy selections of tanka. Rexroth’s translations, which include One Hundred Poems from the Japanese and One Hundred More Poems from the Japanese, are considered classics, and The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi & Izumi Shikibu, translated by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani, continues this tradition.
Secret – ranting
And from now on I will have to keep it secret.
Sometimes you don’t have to tell anyone what you think.
And I decided not to tell people what I think about a person if not about important things.
Sometimes you don’t have to share how you feel to anyone.
And I decided to not share anything if not important things.
But what is not important about your life?
Everything is important.
So, wanna expose everything?
Hmm….
Ok, yet priority makes it simple.
Yeah, I decided to filter what to be told and shared.
Gosh!
What an unimportant ranting mine is!
Happy holidays!
Singapore – December 23, 2018 – 12:19am
Off – haiku
Can Light wish for one
Moment when Time’s going off?
Tired of being —
Singapore – Dec. 18, 2018 – 8:45pm
Memory – free verse
What is it in memory?
Data
Process them
To build a better program
With a more beneficial function
For brighter output.
Singapore – December 16, 2018 – 4:03pm
Caged Bird – free verse
My father had a black starling.
It loved eating kepok* banana – no, had no choice.
It sang – no, cried
It danced – no, nervous
It entertained our guests – no, tried to escape
It slept peacefully – no, dreamed nightmares days and nights
It did happily – no, a prisoner.
The cage was wires and wood.
We hoped it could talk.
Our family moved
To a much smaller home.
Our starling got neglected
How much I can feel the guilty is like a teary moment to a bloody heart!
The black starling got a home
Bigger:
My mother’s relative.
It loved eating kepok* banana – no, had no choice.
It sang – no, cried
It danced – no, nervous
It entertained our guests – no, tried to escape
It slept peacefully – no, dreamed nightmares days and nights
It did happily – no, a prisoner.
The cage was wires and wood, half we gave to it.
We hoped it could talk.
If you are dead, dear Black Starling,
Be in a peaceful moment.
Fly with your beautiful wings, black and shiny!
Feed your life with all the fresh memories.
Forget all the cages and bars.
Be the air
Be the vapour
Be the atmosphere
Be our silent guidance to the freedom out of this cage.
Thank you for your will to be our prisoner
Thank you for your sincerity to be our exhibition
Thank you for your sacrifice to feed our ego
Thank you for your life to complete our purity.
See you across the bridge.
You’ve met him, right?
Tell him you forgive us.
Yours truly,
Me
Shanghai – Dec. 15, 2018 – 12:05 noon is here
Drunken Master – free verse
A jug of water
Flows down in to many mugs.
Drink, Master. Drink!
Shanghai, Dec. 14, 2018 – 23:49
Picture borrowed from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080179/
The Theophany of Perfection – Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi
The Theophany of Perfection
Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi
Listen, O dearly beloved!
I am the reality of the world, the centre of the circumference,
I am the parts and the whole.
I am the will established between Heaven and Earth,
I have created perception in you only in order to be the object of My Perception.
If then you perceive Me, you perceive yourself.
But you cannot perceive Me through yourself.
It is through My Eyes that you see Me and see yourself,
Through your eyes you cannot see Me.
Dearly beloved!
I have called you so often and you have not heard Me.
I have shown Myself to you so often and you have not seen Me.
I have made Myself fragrance so often, and you have not smelled Me,
Savorous food, and you have not tasted Me.
Why can you not reach Me through the object you touch
Or breathe Me through sweet perfumes?
Why do you not see Me? Why do you not hear Me?
Why? Why? Why?
For you My delights surpass all other delights,
And the pleasure I procure you surpasses all other pleasures.
For you I am preferable to all other good things,
I am Beauty, I am Grace.
Love Me, love Me alone.
Love yourself in Me, in Me alone.
Attach yourself to Me,
No one is more inward than I.
Others love you for their own sakes,
I love you for yourself.
And you, you flee from Me.
Dearly beloved!
You cannot treat Me fairly,
For if you approach Me,
It is because I have approached you.
I am nearer to you than yourself,
Than your soul, than your breath.
Who among creatures
Would treat you as I do?
I am jealous of you, over you,
I want you to belong to no other,
Not even to yourself.
Be Mine, be for Me as you are in Me,
Though you are not even aware of it.
Dearly beloved!
Let us go toward Union.
And if we find the road
That leads to separation,
We will destroy separation.
Let us go hand in hand.
Let us enter the presence of Truth.
Let It be our judge
And imprint Its seal upon our union
For ever.
Temasek – December 5, 2018 – 20:53 (when I’m sick)
Picture is borrowed from mezquita.html
A Reservoir – haiku
In the dark black night
She is staring at afar
At the reservoir.
Temasek – Dec. 3, 2018 – 11:13pm
Pause
It’s been quite long I haven’t posted anything in this site. Too busy? Or not able to manage the time? Oh my goodness, how life lasts long yet runs so fast that it rolls in like a useless scroll.
Alas!
What will I give to Life?
Nothing?
Ya, nothing as I have nothing.
Yet, I still do things with my nothing.
Life,
Please guide me through my nothingness to the Light at the end of the scroll.
No, not at the end. It is along the scroll…
Glad to be here again….
The Estuary, Temasek – Nov. 30, 2018 – 9:47pm
Seasons
Two or four are they?
Cycling to count the moments–
That never come back.
Temasek – September 10, 2018 – 5:08
Orchid in a spot – haiku
Orchid in a spot
Is reflected on mirror
On both walls, so clear.
Temasek – July 29, 2018
Tersandung Cahaya – pengingat (Indonesian)
Tak akan lepas dari ingatanku kutipan dari seorang guru: Sesama murid dilarang memberikan rapot. Artinya, tidak perlu menilai orang-lain dalam perjalanan ini. Masing-masing memanggul salipnya sendiri, setiap diri menangisi lukanya, beban dan segala derita yang didukungnya sendiri. Tak elok menganggap bebanmu lebih berat dan hebat daripada yang lain — menangis dalam diam menelan tapi tertawa saat ada yang mengajak melihat lebih tajam meminjam mata sesama.
Pun, ketika kau melihat diri sebagai pembawa cahaya.
Lalu kau menilai siapa yang membawa cahaya dan siapa yang membawa kegelapan, kau puja pembawa cahaya (versimu) dan kau sentil pembawa kegelapan (versimu). Aduhai, lalu kau menjadi pengamat gelap-terang. Seakan kau paling gape tentang gelap dan terang-Nya.
Kepahitanmu sendiri tak kau tilik, sedangkan rasa di sekitarmu harus menutup diri supaya tak mengendusnya.
Kebijaksanaanmu bagai puncak ilmu, sedangkan rasa di sekitarmu harus memicingkan mata memahami kebenarannya.
Kehalus-budianmu bagai elusan malaikat, sedangkan rasa di sekitarmu bagai tercucuk duri-duri tajam sakit linu ngilu hingga di dasar jiwa.
Kebahagiaanmu bagai warna pelangi, sedangkan rasa di sekitarmu ketakutan kehilangan warna karena tak mampu mengekspresikan diri secara merdeka.
Tapi kupaham, ini hanya spectrum cahaya.
Biar dipandang sebagai spectrum gelap-Nya. Tiada mengapa….
Aku tinggal di sini, di gelap-Nya supaya dapat menonton yang sedang dikucuri kemenangan akan kesadaran cahaya. Aku ada di kesadaran spectrum lainnya dan aku bahagia. Tiada mengapa….
Kubahagia untuk kalian….
Bagaimana jika nanti kau terkurung gelap?
Bagaimana jika tersandung cahaya?
…. Jika ternyata kau terserimpet cahayamu sendiri?
Mengapa tak pernah kau panggil aku ke rengkuhanmu sebelum kau caci?
…. tak kau sapa aku sebelum kau hakimi?
…. tak kau tanyai sebelum kau namai?
Cahayamu mulai nyerimpet dari awal perjalanan kita.
Terlalu silau lalu menyilapkan.
Terlalu dekat hingga menghanguskan.
Tidak ada sesal di rasaku.
Tidak ada maaf akan kukirimkan,
Sebelum kau dapatkan cerlang dari gelapku.
Biar kubahagiai cahayamu.
Sampai kau temukan spectrum yang bening untuk menengok dirimu sendiri, rasamu sendiri.
Runtuh satu pilarmu.
Kurengkuh diriku sendiri, kupersembahkan pada Kanjeng Nabi. Dalam sunyi.
Lagi, kuingat kata guruku “dilarang memberi rapot pada sesama murid” dan akan kulakukan selama aku dalam spectrum cahaya-Nya.
Duh Gusti, mugi paringo ing margi kaleresan
Kados margining menungso kang manggih kanikmatan
Sanes margining menungso kang paduko la’nati
Shollu ‘alaa Sayyidinaa Muhammad….
Temasek – 13 Mei 2018 – 02:07 pagi
Picture borrowed from Wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Spectrum.2400.1800.S.G.png
Bold Petals – haiku
Bold petals of red
Roses among thorns dry out
By the Wind of North.
GH Jakarta — May 8, 2018
