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RATNA,
You May Laugh At Me, Rewrite,
An Adaptation of a Poem by T. Wijaya,
Ratna, you may have left me,
But the blanket on our bed remains.
Sometimes out from the shadows in the street
I hear chatter; I run to the window,
Open the drapes, look outside, and I see children.
Because the event more or less reoccurs daily,
At intervals, fifteen minutes before the ninth hour,
I imagine the children are students, who hurry, hasten,
Not to be late for school.
The sound runs major then quiets,
But before too long it returns, again, to loudness.
Beneath its ebb and upward flow,
Within its clamor’s swirling contraction and expansion,
I swear to it, darling, I swear, the young, collective voice
Throughout all its commotion,
It seems to capture a lyrical composition.
I perceive my poem, this very poem,
It is as if the youngsters have gained access,
Know the words and meter of my heart’s declaration.
In my mind the cacophony coming out from the street,
That swells over my bedroom window sill,
Amounts to no mere happenstance of noisy play,
But is itself poetry, which I myself have composed.
I feel the children have taken my verse
And boldly recite it for the public.
Their voice expresses every splendid feeling and thought,
I hear my love for you, said aloud with excellence,
A match, as though the poet himself read the lines,
2.
Ratna, think how strange it seems, paradoxical when,
These self-same students learn in classroom,
Study the language of science,
Yet my own textbook teaches at odds,
Against current curriculum, revealing solely
Great passion and affection, a knowledge that
No everyday, timely attendance might bring to reason.
No matter the hours, whatever time devoted to lessons,
No amount of homework or study reduces my soul,
Its lyric, to easy, algebraic, chalk–board formulation.
I am reminded of how hapless the task, trying to reason
All the marvelous abundance God bestows,
Although we may not merit, no way deserve
His grace, that bounty which freely befalls us.
Ratna, you may laugh at me, but when I awaken
I pretend to percolate coffee for you,
Or that soon I receive your telephone call,
Your voice at the other end, you,
No longer at business, far away, but here, now,
The distance between us breached,
The gap closed, when I hear your vocal timbre.
Ratna, my dreams of you are constant,
And possess warmth and overall good feeling.
Consider it. Once I recount my story,
The story about you,
You the woman, who has abandoned me,
Would any one, even one solitary soul,
Be drawn to conclude that I am a happy man?
Yet I do not regret a single day.
My thoughts of you, our life together, remain indelible.
And when you promised heaven and earth to me,
Those moments you swore love and your words,
Once spoken ardently – my remembrance of them,
Carry me to joy, and boundless contentment,
They fire within my mind’s eye, and propel my being.
3.
Remember the tree I planted in our garden?
Its fruit has become property of another,
And each and every time I think it over,
Our life, the every moment we spent together,
I find myself sitting at the desk to write,
Hoping to explain, how I trust every word you said,
Wishing to relate the splendid images,
The visceral weight, and the deep compulsion,
To relive the time, our hand was in hand, and
We were held together, our fingers interlocked.
Ratna, in endless run of sentence after sentence,
My life returns to great day, the glory chapters,
Which comprise the big book of our love,
Oh, how thrilled I am to have been at your side.
Ratna, in your heart my love for you may be dead.
But each day I arise in that blue room,
That blue bedroom, where we started the day,
Each day I wake to the same blue sky,
Which houses our Lord, to Him I pray,
I ask for nothing, only His Will for you, for me, today.
Ratna, my lovely light, you, the dream which floods
Across this room, down upon the key board,
And drives my fingers to write the length,
-- Oh, the grand expanse over which my bosom races --
No mere chimera, no flight of fancy,
But real as is the space between earth’s continents,
My ardency covers distance,
Real as the miles, which total our globe’s circumference.
Do not fear me; do not fear this verse.
Ratna, listen not to friends,
Those who claim misgivings,
Who believe I have taken leave of my senses,
That my ultimate design may want best for you.
You know that is not the case.
Ratna, I write in the moment, and, as you already know,
This instance sums all a human may possess,
We own but this one day, alone,
Still I mean every word I say for the ages,
I want world and posterity to learn.
Oh what a lucky man I have been.
My good fortune, the gratitude I feel in having
Loved you and having made your acquaintance!
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