Poems and pictures

SUZAN PIPER

Published: 02 July 2010

These 1979 Rendra postcards were illustrated by the New Art Movement painter Hardi, who had also attracted the unwelcome attention of the authorities

Suzan Piper

On this charred earth our hearts always ask:
What else do we own? What price love?

On this charred earth our hearts always ask:
Where must we go, where is our house?

On this charred earth our hearts are always asking,
hearts made anxious by conflict!

On this charred earth our hearts always ask:
Today death will call upon who?

A person who waits
and transverses time.
A heart, a desert without flowers.
Air and stones at once in her womb.

She sits upon wounds.
Humouring her passions she says:
I am old now.
And they order me:

‘Just sit there!
And wait!’

I hear a voice:
The cry of a wounded animal…
Someone shoots an arrow at the moon.
A small bird has fallen from its nest.

People must be awakened
Witness must be given
So that life can be guarded.

Life is not for complaining and grumbling.
Life is for transforming life,
working turning the soil,
entering the secrets of the heavens and the oceans
and creating and measuring the world.
We bear tasks
because tasks are tasks.
Not for heaven or hell,
but for the dignity of a human being.

Putting hands into action
transforming reality.
Putting hands into action
pursuing dreams.

Making hands into fists
sheltering life.
Making hands into fists
hunting away oppression.