The Lost Village Poem by Nur Meiyati

We once visited this place
In one of the days of misery
A nice quiet cool village
With nice villagers

“ Where is your husband from? ” one of them asked me, in Javanese
Javanese villagers are always very curious about foreigners
But they mean no harms
Foreigners are always spoiled with attention like films stars
I blushed
I translated his question to you
You smiled, and we smiled
Then we felt hungry
And I asked you if you dared to try fried rice in the 'warung makan'
“Why not? ”
You liked to see me involved in having small talk with the wife of the 'warung' owner
In Javanese, not Indonesian
That you did not know any words of it
I greeted the baby in her arms
“She is fifteen months old” the mother explained
Oh, the cute baby smiled
And even she allowed me to hold her
So nice
You did not want to miss it
You took some photos of me and the baby

When the fried rice was ready, you devoured it
As if you had not eaten for days
Not sure whether you adapted to me
Or we both matched
But our favorite places that we called small paradises
Were not luxurious hotels or restaurants
Our favorite occasions were not romantic dinners
With a dim of the scanted candlelight
But a simple and cheap place like that
Could be our paradise
Besides because of our limitation
We had to avoid public places
I smiled to see you like that and felt funny
How you could enjoy the place and the food
A sharp contrast with you
I liked to see the movement of your mouth when you ate the rice
You did not know
How I wanted to kiss you, at that time
But of course I could not do it in the presence of other people
To respect the value of the Javanese villagers
For not showing our happiness and personal matters too openly
In front of them
That would make them blushed

Time changed everything
I can hardly recognize this place
There is not a village anymore
No trees, no roads, no houses, no everything
All have disappeared
The whole village was buried with sand
Because of the lava
Spewed from the 2010 volcano explosion

If I have to tell somebody
About some places we once visited
How can I describe this place
It is still there but everything has changed
No traces
The lost village
My story does not have a setting of place?


(Notes: 'warung makan' is the Indonesian words for a kind of food stall.)