Teachers And Students Forbidden To Enter Burnt School Poem by Afrizal Malna

i don't believe my own hands, which this morning
burnt hundreds of schools in my own city, schools
for my own children. i don't believe my hands
which lit the flame, i don't believe the flame which
burnt the school, i don't believe that burnt school, i
don't believe that event which burnt my thoughts, leaving
and not seeing you again full with barbed wire in your
face. i don't believe stories which come from soy sauce
bottles at the soto stall near your house.

teachers and students are forbidden to enter
the burnt school. letting their own tongues become
a snake in front of the mirror. i don't believe
the nation whose words are burnt. but teachers and
students keep going into that burnt school while
taking a handful of soil to save chalk, and still
writing shadows of a freedom, its back and its feet and neck.
and blackboard from the back of fire. and fire wants to
see your face, wants to see your look, wants to see
the gaze of your eyes.

and fire wants to make a village, like the village
which gave birth to you. and fire rewrites all
these sentences in your mother's womb, before
children go to the road, see truck shadows passing and
signs of tears on palms.

Translation: 2010, Andy Fuller