/1/
THE MASS THAT KNOWS NO SCALE
Poem by Leni Marlina
–
Chlorine dries upon the departure floor,
suitcase wheels chew through the light on polished tiles;
a grain of earth hides in the seam of a garment,
small to the eye, yet settling somewhere beneath the soul.
Two shirts. Three books. One document.
The passport straightens the body into a sequence of names;
there is no column for the dust that leaves in silence,
no number for what keeps growing inside the chest.
Baca juga: Kumpulan Puisi Karya Leni Marlina: "MASSA YANG TIDAK MASUK TIMBANGAN"
The aircraft lifts the rice fields into green scales,
rivers fold their lightning into the pleats of cloud;
mountains are severed from their names by altitude,
yet the bones retain a map no hand has finished drawing.
In a foreign city, neon trembles against the glass,
a coffee machine hisses in a tongue you have never known;
then rain releases the scent of earth from another time,
and an invisible door suddenly opens inside the mind.
You begin to understand: an address is merely administration,
coordinates only the grammar by which the earth is marked;
there are places that never appear on navigation screens,
yet pulse quietly beneath human skin and bone.
If one day your body loses the direction of home,
do not search for it on signs, maps, or gates;
place your palm upon the earth after a long rain,
and let something older than your name recognize your footsteps.
For you do not carry earth inside a suitcase.
You carry a mass that knows no scale;
and however far the sky transports your body from its origin,
the earth remains,
not where you once belonged,
but where your body
can never become
entirely foreign.
–
Melbourne, Australia, 2013
(Indonesian Original Title: “TABUNG REAKSI DI BAWAH KULIT”)
—
/2/
THE REACTION VESSEL BENEATH THE SKIN
Poem by Leni Marlina
–
Exile places you inside a vessel without a name,
a foreign language condenses upon unpracticed lips;
bitter coffee leaves its sediment at the root of the old tongue,
while the days keep stirring the body clean.
Heat arrives carrying a tongue of flame,
cold follows with crystals forming in the bones;
some convictions evaporate through the pores,
others harden into quiet veins.
You are no longer the solution you once were.
Old bonds detach without a sound;
something foreign seeps into the heart,
rearranging its structure without asking for a name.
Beyond the laboratory glass, marker ink clings to a teacher’s fingers,
diesel blackens the palms of a laborer;
a hoe strikes stone, the sound absent from every textbook,
while mud opens pages never taught at a desk.
There is knowledge born from the bent back,
from dried salt left behind upon the skin;
there are lessons that require no classroom,
because the earth itself has long been a difficult teacher.
What use is knowledge if it only glows upon a screen,
if its light remains no more than pixels inside the eye?
You want to bring it down from the head into rough earth,
to make it hand, to make it labor, to make it real.
Into classrooms whose windows swallow the light,
into rivers slowly surrendering their clarity;
into gardens waiting for hands to read the weather,
into a child’s future that has not yet been given a name.
Now your body is no longer a storage chamber,
but a vessel forever reacting in silence;
knowledge that remains inside the head is merely sediment,
knowledge that travels into the hands begins to alter the world.
You emerge from the vessel without becoming whole,
carrying heat, dust, salt, and wounds no eye can see;
exile does not return you as the person you were,
it rearranges the body
so that knowledge
may finally have
somewhere to act.
–
Melbourne, Australia, 2013
(Indonesian Original Title: “TABUNG REAKSI DI BAWAH KULIT”)
—
/3/
YOU, IN TWO PLACES WITHIN ONE BODY
Poem by Leni Marlina
–
Beneath the laboratory lamps, a drop of light trembles on glass,
a pipette holds its clarity, numbers settle upon the screen;
my hands calculate error, my ears measure an unreadable distance,
because there are coordinates never recorded, yet pulsing beneath consciousness.
The steam of rice rises from memory, clouding the glass,
chili leaves a red ember upon the tip of my tongue;
rain taps upon a corrugated roof from a season far away,
and the past slowly seeps through the pores of blood.
Chemicals fill the room with the metallic scent of elsewhere,
night hangs beyond the window like a spectrum without color;
the tongue searches for broth unavailable in this cold city,
while a single phone-light opens a kitchen somewhere far away.
“Have you eaten?”
Two words fall, light in sound, heavy in their echo;
suddenly walls lose their measurements, and distance loses its name.
The little room acquires a door invisible to the eye,
and a distant home begins to pulse inside the same body.
Your hands remain upon the glass, yet your palms read memory,
like an ancient sensor recognizing a field before the instrument can;
I am here, while something there is still keeping watch,
two places layered upon each other
without either one
having to leave.
Home is not an address finished upon a map,
not coordinates obedient to satellites and lines of latitude;
it is an invisible force bending the trajectory of things,
a field that draws the body without ever touching it.
If longing were a particle, let it find its secret channel,
pass through the membrane of night, beyond glass, cities, and light;
from the laboratory table to the distant kitchen,
where your name is still being called
before you have time
to translate anything at all.
You are here.
You are there.
Two possibilities pulse within the same body;
perhaps human beings are never truly present
in only one place,
because some part of us
is always left behind
where we are
being missed.
–
Melbourne, Australia, 2013
(Indonesian Original Title: ” ENGKAU DI DUA TEMPAT DALAM SATU TUBUH”)
—
/4/
YOU WHO HAVE CHANGED PHASE
Poem by Leni Marlina
–
The aircraft descends; clouds unfold the layers of air,
the sea fractures blue into splinters of light;
wheels touch earth, pressure changes in an instant,
and the lungs recognize the wetness before the mind can name it.
Humidity enters through the chambers of the chest,
the scent of earth rises from cracks in the aging asphalt;
the body recognizes something before the tongue finds a word,
as though the earth keeps a cipher beneath the human palm.
You return not as the same substance.
Heat, pressure, distance have altered what lies within;
what departed carried one form, what returns carries an echo,
like water recognizing its river after becoming cloud for too long.
Inside the mind, knowledge waits to become a voice,
but silent knowledge merely gleams like a shadow;
it must descend into the palm, touch mud and air,
become a movement capable of changing something in life.
From turbines to horns, from sterile corridors to the market,
from packaged food to onions darkening in a pan;
from laboratory glass to soil holding the roots,
knowledge sheds its coat
and acquires the pulse of living things.
Underground, roots work without titles,
fungi decompose leaves into an unfinished language;
worms loosen the darkness, opening passageways for roots,
while the world keeps growing without asking who began it.
Carry your knowledge into classrooms where the windows dim,
into rivers whose clarity is eroded by waste and season;
into gardens waiting for hands to read the soil before planting life,
into the eyes of a child whose future has not yet acquired
a vocabulary or a system.
You have changed phase. Do not let knowledge freeze.
Let it move like charge seeking a field;
from head to hand, from hand toward something new,
from one life into another, asking no recognition in return.
For change does not always leave behind a name,
sometimes it works quietly beneath the surface;
like an electron moving without asking for light,
what matters is not who moves,
but what becomes different
afterward
in the life
that remains.
–
Melbourne, Australia, 2013
(Indonesian Original Title: “ENGKAU YANG TELAH BERUBAH FASE”)
—
About the Poet — Leni Marlina
Leni Marlina is a writer, poet, and academic at Universitas Negeri Padang, Indonesia. Her love of literature and literacy began during her school years and has continued to shape her journey as a writer and educator. Her engagement with literature deepened during her Master of Arts (Writing and Literature) studies in Australia.
Since 2006, she has served as a lecturer in the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Languages and Arts, Universitas Negeri Padang. Alongside her academic work, she writes poetry, short stories, essays, scholarly articles, and literary works, while also engaging in translation and editorial projects. She serves as an editor for the digital platform Suara Anak Negeri (SAN) Media Group.
For Leni, writing is more than a creative practice. It is a way of learning to understand life, tending to human dignity, and sharing hope. She therefore remains actively involved in literary and literacy communities and helps develop spaces for learning and exchange among people passionate about education, literature, and literacy, including PPIC (Poetry Pen International Community), Litttalk-C (Literary Talk Community), and Starcom Indonesia (Starmoonsun Edupreneur Community).
She is also a member of SatuPena Sumbar, Penyala Literasi Semesta, Victorian Writers, and ACC Shanghai Huifeng International Literary Association.
Through poetry, writing, and literacy initiatives, Leni seeks to contribute, however modestly, to the growth of reading, writing, and literary appreciation. She has received a number of local, national, and international recognitions in writing—honors she regards not as destinations, but as part of a longer journey of learning, creating, and giving.
Email: lenimarlina@fbs.unp.ac.id
Wattpad: @lenimarlina_write
Instagram: @lenimarlina_starmoonsun
The Indonesian version of the poems above is available in the official link below:
Kumpulan Puisi Karya Leni Marlina: “MASSA YANG TIDAK MASUK TIMBANGAN”
