#bumi

PERCAKAPAN DUA RANTING kalau pernah kamu bertemu dulu, apa yang kau inginkan nanti? sepi. kalau nanti kau dapatkan cinta, bagaimana kau tempatkan waktu? sendiri. bila hari tak lagi berani munculkan diri, dan kau tinggal untuk menanti? cari. andai bumi sembunyi saat kau berlari? mimpi. lalu malam menyer- gapmu dalam pandang tiada tepi? hati. baik...aku tak lagi memberimu mungkin? kecuali. baik..baik, aku hanya akan menya- pamu tanpa kecuali? mungkin. dan jika tetap seperti itu, embun takkan jatuh dari kalbumu? sampai. akankah kau patahkan tubuhmu hingga musim tiada berganti? mari. lalu kau tumbuhkan bunga tanpa kelopak tanpa daun berhelai-helai? kemari. juga kau benamkan yang lain dalam jurang di matamu? aku. katakan bahwa kau mene- rimamu seperti aku memberimu?... kau? ya. kau?...aku. Besancon, oktober sebelas 1997. ↗

— Radhar Panca Dahana

#bumi #bunga #cinta #daun #embun

Your scorn for mediocrity blinds you to its vast primitive power. You stand in the glare of your own brilliance, unable to see into the dim corners of the room, to dilate your eyes and see the potential dangers of the mass, the wad of humanity. Even as I tell you this, dear student, you cannot quite believe that lesser men, in whatever numbers, can really defeat you. But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring — but inevitably victorious. The amoeba outlives the tiger because it divides and continues in its immortal monotony. The masses are the final tyrants. See how, in the arts, Kabuki wanes and withers while popular novels of violence and mindless action swamp the mind of the mass reader. And even in that timid genre, no author dares to produce a genuinely superior man as his hero, for in his rage of shame the mass man will send his yojimbo, the critic, to defend him. The roar of the plodders is inarticulate, but deafening. They have no brain, but they have a thousand arms to grasp and clutch at you, drag you down. ↗

— Trevanian

#inarticulate #masses #shibumi #wad #age