Find A Paradise Almost Anywhere
Our paradise is forever lost since Adam, laments someone.
Just eating simple fare together with our fingers on a banana leaf, drinking together out of a used bottle of aqua and sleeping in her/my arms in my cart - yet, is there a warmer, cozier bridal couch? -, celebrating our marriage with heavenly light of stars and moon. Right there is my palace, my kingdom, my queen, my treasure, my paradise. So sings a vagrant young man.
Well, a paradise is in our national park Cibodas, said Si Upik.
A paradise is in Roxy’s food-stalls, breathing the delicious foods being prepared, arousing my appetite, said Si Buyung.
A paradise is in an armchair, when tired after keeping myself awake, I fall asleep, said Pak Johan.
Drinking and nestling in my warm mother’s bosom, that’s paradise, says baby.
A paradise is in her eyes or is it in her smile, ponders her lover.
A paradise is in a song when the listener suddenly cannot speak and becomes silent. In a book when the reader suddenly cannot read getting tears in his eyes, says another.
What is an oasis in a paradise? An oasis is a paradise in a desert, comments someone.
I can find a paradise almost anywhere. I saw a paradise in a waste-water basin when a pigeon pair happily was bathing without being ashamed together. In a broken wall with a happy plant, though it had but roots instead of legs, cannot fly as the butterfly nor sing as the nightingale and forever mute, was fixed, bound to the same place for life.
Happy and grateful to the Creator after being granted, seen so many paradises and still many more to come, here on earth. I wouldn’t be sorry even if I wouldn’t have a place in heaven after all. Would you still crave after it? I asked pak Arif. “Well, at least I’ll have seen heaven in a wild flower. That’s what I remember William Blake has said,” he answered.
April 1999
Our paradise is forever lost since Adam, laments someone.
Just eating simple fare together with our fingers on a banana leaf, drinking together out of a used bottle of aqua and sleeping in her/my arms in my cart - yet, is there a warmer, cozier bridal couch? -, celebrating our marriage with heavenly light of stars and moon. Right there is my palace, my kingdom, my queen, my treasure, my paradise. So sings a vagrant young man.
Well, a paradise is in our national park Cibodas, said Si Upik.
A paradise is in Roxy’s food-stalls, breathing the delicious foods being prepared, arousing my appetite, said Si Buyung.
A paradise is in an armchair, when tired after keeping myself awake, I fall asleep, said Pak Johan.
Drinking and nestling in my warm mother’s bosom, that’s paradise, says baby.
A paradise is in her eyes or is it in her smile, ponders her lover.
A paradise is in a song when the listener suddenly cannot speak and becomes silent. In a book when the reader suddenly cannot read getting tears in his eyes, says another.
What is an oasis in a paradise? An oasis is a paradise in a desert, comments someone.
I can find a paradise almost anywhere. I saw a paradise in a waste-water basin when a pigeon pair happily was bathing without being ashamed together. In a broken wall with a happy plant, though it had but roots instead of legs, cannot fly as the butterfly nor sing as the nightingale and forever mute, was fixed, bound to the same place for life.
Happy and grateful to the Creator after being granted, seen so many paradises and still many more to come, here on earth. I wouldn’t be sorry even if I wouldn’t have a place in heaven after all. Would you still crave after it? I asked pak Arif. “Well, at least I’ll have seen heaven in a wild flower. That’s what I remember William Blake has said,” he answered.
April 1999
January 2011
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