Resignation

I cannot get to sleep

People chatter, dogs howl

The world faroff evanishes

Darkness builds up like a wall of stone

Voices ceaselessly attack

Next to fire and ashes

I would like to speak

My voice is gone, my strength fled

Who cares? It makes no difference!

This world refuses to be asked, and doesn’t care for anyone.

The river freezes up

and life isn’t life now

I repeat all that’s happened

Stopping my ears, shutting my eyes

Awaiting the calm that must come.

March 1943

Chairil Anwar
after the French translation of Louis-Charles Damais