Are You Still Playing Your Flute? by zurinah hassan

The poet uses a conversational style with the poem. The person referred to here is the one who can play the flute. At first glance, it was like love poetry as much use of the words are soft and romantic. The conversations are soft and romantic with the flute player because it is one way or the style of the poet to express all the disturbing thoughts he has in his mind.

The theme for this poem is community. Overall, the expressions of the poet of his country and the nation is that his country is riddled with crisis and uncertainty. Amidst such circumstances, the poet can remember about the flute player. The poet can't help but also to be reminded about his villagers who are terminally ill.

He talks about his situation in the city. While the city is ill, the village has been deserted and abandoned by the young who seek for greener pastures in the city. Why is the flute player still there in the village playing his flute for? However, this also means that the flute player might be still defending the artistic traditions of a typical Malay village.

The flute musical instrument is chosen because it is the closest to nature. It is just a piece of bamboo and does not require sophisticated technology to be created. Thus, everything appears to be back to nature and the roots of things.

The poet feels guilty for treating nostalgia as akin to the flute player. That feeling of guilt is because he is thinking about something beautiful like arts. In the city, he should have been busy for that life passes quickly. As if he is giving his precious time to the trivial things of life while being hit by more serious problems in the city. These problems appear in the next stanza.

In the meantime, many of his villagers are unemployed. The people are divided because of politics. And around the world such as in Palestine, Muslims are being killed daily by the vicious Zionist bombs.

The poet believes that it is not the time to pay attention to the arts. It is time for hard work. It is time to solve problems, rather being lulled into artistic pleasure, eventhough the artists can not serve his passion for art. Sadly as they claimed, it was not to become an artist again.

(Adapted from zurinahhassan@blogspot.com)