Illustration of “REWRITING THE MORNING”: The Poems Collection by Leni Marlina (PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA). Image Source: Starcom Indonesia’s Artworks No. 925-381 (Assisted by AI).
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REWRITING THE MORNING
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A Poem by Leni Marlina
[PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA]
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
We are the tears the trees refused to surrender—
falling not into filth,
but rising as roots that pierce the defiled earth.
We are blood that resists the sea’s forgetfulness,
choosing instead to become
trunks no longer willing to be chopped down.
They thought history could be redrafted
with trembling hands.
But look—
we carved our names upon the bones of time,
chiseled on wind
that shall not kneel.
And so, in the ash of forests burned to hush us,
we shall rewrite the morning.
Padang, West Sumatra, INDONESIA, 2014
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Our Sight
A Poem by Leni Marlina
[PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA]
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
They tried to gouge out our gaze,
as if light were a flame that could be pinched out.
But our seeing slipped into the veins of rivers,
into the marrow of stones,
into leaves whispering stories to stars.
We are not mere pupils
but prophecy.
Our vision was never caged in retinas,
it was skyborne—
etched in the language of roots and scars.
They sealed our eyelids with fear.
But even darkness must bow
to a light that does not sleep.
Padang, West Sumatra, INDONESIA, 2014
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The Hands That Cannot Be Broken
A Poem by Leni Marlina
[PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA]
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
They snapped our fingers
like twigs in frost,
like brittle pens cast into fire.
But they forget—
a hand that writes in pain
cannot be shattered.
We engraved resistance on bark and brick,
stitched truth into air,
wrote with bones that refused surrender.
Our wrists bled verses.
Our palms bore lines
not of fortune,
but of fury.
And still we write.
Padang, West Sumatra, INDONESIA, 2014
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The Voice That Cannot Be Drowned
A Poem by Leni Marlina
[PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA]
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
They plunged our voices into silence,
tied our tongues with stone,
dragged us down to forgetting.
But our words rose—
bubble by bubble—
into thunder.
We became echoes
the sea could not smother,
resonance stitched into the wind’s memory,
a sound without throat
but full of fire.
They thought drowning us meant victory.
But even silence, when scorched enough,
becomes scream.
Padang, West Sumatra, INDONESIA, 2014
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A Book That Cannot Burn Twice
A Poem by Leni Marlina
[PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA]
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
They fed our pages to fire,
thinking smoke could unwrite the soul.
But they forgot—
ash remembers.
The words rose in sparks,
found rain,
and returned to the roots—
birthing more paper,
more hands,
more poems.
They believed endings lived in flame.
But we have always been
the fire’s afterthought—
the phoenix of ink.
Padang, West Sumatra, INDONESIA, 2014
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The Wound That Cannot Be Erased
A Poem by Leni Marlina
[PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA]
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
They carved their fear
into our skin
as if we were slate
to be rewritten.
But our wounds sang.
Each gash became a letter,
each scar a stanza
that even silence could not mute.
Our bodies became tomes
not of pity,
but prophecy.
The blade wrote
what no history could contain.
Blood became memory.
Pain became ink.
Padang, West Sumatra, INDONESIA, 2014
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The Wall That Cannot Collapse
A Poem by Leni Marlina
[PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA]
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
They built walls,
but we painted them into poems.
Brick by brick,
we turned cages into canvas,
fortresses into fables.
Where they barred light,
we became shadows that shimmer,
etching our names
between the cracks.
They imprisoned our bodies,
not our breath.
This wall,
once fortress,
is now monument.
Padang, West Sumatra, INDONESIA, 2014
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Steps That Cannot Be Stopped
A Poem by Leni Marlina
[PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA]
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
They erased our footprints
and claimed we never walked.
But the earth remembers.
We moved through mist,
through rubble,
through silence too loud to bear.
We walked in whispers,
in thunder,
in the rhythm of broken knees
refusing surrender.
They saw halted bodies.
They didn’t see
how even halted hearts
still march.
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When They Shut the Door
A Poem by Leni Marlina
[PPIPM-Indonesia, Poetry-Pen IC, Indonesian Writer of Satu Pena-West Sumatra, Indonesian Creator of AI Era, FSM, Literacy Flames Community-West Sumatra, ACC SHILA]
☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
They closed the doors
and smiled.
But we—
we became wind
that slipped through the smallest crack.
They uprooted forests
to silence our shade.
We returned as seeds.
They drowned our voices,
but could not hush the mountains.
We are fate
that will not bargain.
Padang, West Sumatra, INDONESIA, 2014
———————————–
This poetry collection titled “Rewriting the Morning” (Poems 1–9) was originally written bilingually (English–Indonesian) by Leni Marlina in 2014, as part of her personal poetic journey. In 2025, the poems were revised and publicly released for the first time through digital platforms.
Leni Marlina remains an active member of the Indonesian Writers Association, SATU PENA – West Sumatra Branch since its establishment in 2022; the Indonesian Era AI Creators Community; and the international poets and writers community ACC based in Shanghai. Since 2024, she has served as Indonesian Poetry Ambassador for the ACC Shanghai Huifeng International Literary Association. She was previously involved with the Victoria Writers Association in Australia. Since 2006, she has served as a lecturer at the Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Negeri Padang.
Leni is also the founder and leader of several digital-based communities and initiatives in literature, language, education, and social development, including:
1. World Children’s Literature Community (WCLC): https://shorturl.at/acFv1
2. Poetry-Pen International Community
3. PPIPM (Pondok Puisi Inspirasi Pemikiran Masyarakat)-Indonesia, the Poetry Community of Indonesian Society’s Inspirations: https://shorturl.at/2eTSB; https://shorturl.at/tHjRI
4. Starcom Indonesia Community (Starmoonsun Edupreneur Community Indonesia):
https://rb.gy/5c1b02
5. Linguistic Talk Community
6. Literature Talk Community
7. Translation Practice Community
8. English Languange Learning, Literacy, Literary Community (EL4C)
