Tuesday, March 07, 2006
21.42 p.m.

Song: Love in Whose Rich Honor
By Muriel Rukeyser
Love
in whose rich honor
I stand looking from my window
Over the starved tress of a dry September
Love
Deep and so far forbidden
is bringing me
a gift
to claw at my skin
to break open my eyes
the gift longed for so long
The power
to write
out of the desperate ecstasy at last
death and madness.

Reading the poem above becomes one of my inspirations to produce this short writing.

Actually, I am not too astonished to what Muriel says in this poem. Her poem is just another piece of women’s writing imposing the equal ability of women to men in writing. This poem might be “striking” for nineteenth-century Americans because at that period writing was merely considered as men’s sphere. Nowadays, writing becomes everybody’s spheres-men, women, adult, teenagers, and children.
Instead of writing more about the feminist issues (my best friend has been doing it in her blogs), I am interested in writing about the obvious theme of the poem-love.
I think love is indeed a power. When you have love you can do lots of things that you’ve never thought you would do. Even, you may become someone new. Observing what is happening to my closest friend –that she changed a lot after being in love- reminds me of my past. I did have similar experiences with her.
Once I fell in love deeply to someone. The strong love I had for him made me happy and felt this life was so beautiful. All things that used to be ordinary in my life became something special and wonderful. The view I usually had on my commuting trip, for example, became something beautiful to enjoy. The old and poor passengers in the bus appealed my sympathy, and I suddenly became a caring person. Moreover, I turned to be more confident, more religious, calmer, and ... more enthusiastic in reading books! I began buying and reading a lot of books. I even cut, glued and compiled some articles from newspapers. I felt that I was quite something
When I broke up from him, I attempted to keep my “new identity” coz it seemed to bring me happiness ( It made my life run so beautifully). However, it was not an easy thing to do. The absence of someone who cared of me, kept encouraging, and in need of me at times created emptiness in the depth of my heart. I often felt that I began to lose some parts of my “new life” day by day, month by month, and year by year. Up to now I am always trying to keep the best I have ever got from our love. Being grateful to what we have been through and seeing everything from positive sides makes me able to stand up and face the ups and downs of my life.
Well, isn’t our experience the same? Yup! But one thing for sure is we belong to people who have succeeded in creating positive impact of love. Are there any who do not experience the same? Of course, there are. People who let love destroy rather than liven them up.
In my religion I was taught that Love is a gift from God. God has ninety-nine good names (asma’ul Husna). He gives one of His name, Arrahman , meaning the Most Passionate to all of His creature. As a result, we can feel and see the love of a mother to her offspring, a husband’s to his wife, a man’s to his lover etc. If not becoz of God’s love, this world would have ended (there have been so many sins done by humans such as killing others and destroying nature).
Love is essentially a good spirit. Whether it can be destructive or constructive, it depends on the persons to whom the love comes to. If they see love is a grace, they will feel grateful. They automatically start to feel their existence (to love and to be loved). This, of course, will liven up their self-confidence. They will rediscover the inner potency within them, and this will surely bring the true happiness into their lives.
However, some people may say that love at times lead people to do evil things such as stealing, corrupting and even killing. For people who just lost their lover or broke up, there is surely sadness within their heart. To an extreme extent, some people choose to end their lives and sink themselves into miserable lives. They will start to say that love is painful. For this case, I’d say that it is not because of the love itself. It is because the people to whom love comes to haven’t been able to take love as a wonderful power to beautify their life. Usually, they are those who tend to be excessive so that they are blinded by love. On the name of love they claim themselves to be irrational. For this phenomena, I prefer to see it a new insight telling me that we should not be in excess of love. Excessive things, including love, will always harm. I will say "Loving temperately will beautify life as it always goes with common sense. It changes sadness and miseries into a new spirit to understand and enjoy the mystery of life much better.”