Saturday Rave: Willingness, by Chairil Anwar

 Chairil Anwar was brought up in Medan, in North Sumatra, and his work is credited with helping to establish Indonesian as the official language of his country. Most of his writing life was spent under Japanese occupation during the Second Word War, so his poems were liable to censorship.

 

He died in 1949 at the age of twenty seven.

This poem is, I think, a simple, and rather lovely thing.

Willingness

If you like I'll take you back
With all my heart.

I'm still alone.

I know you're not what you were,

Like a flower pulled into parts.
Don't crawl! Stare at me bravely.

If you like I'll take you back

For myself, but
I won't share even with a mirror.

Word To Use Today: mirror. The Old French mirer means to look. Before that, the Latin mīrārī means to wonder at.