A poem for Sapardi Djoko Damono

Goenawan Mohamad

It’s the weekend

And we’ve had enough of death

Riding around in the 1970s

before the night is late

on the old Ducati

we chat about funny things

concrete things

fleeting things

And someone says

Do not go gentle into that good night

Every now and then

in the mirror I see

black Mount Merapi

making its fire

of changing times

its lava flow

signifying something

I do not know

I do not know

But someone says

Do not go gentle into that good night

There an old man

on the corner of Jalan Danau

is fighting off the rain

But we love the downpour

We love the drizzle

We love it pelting down

Tomorrow, you say, our orbit

Will not last long

And someone says

Do not go gentle into that good night.

2020

Goenawan Mohamad

—‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ from the poem of the same name by Dylan Thomas.