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Aku Ingin

By Sapardi Djoko Damono

Aku Ingin is a poem by Sapardi Djoko Damono that was published in 1989. It was
said that Sapardi made this poem when his wife was ill. Influenced by the moment, Sapardi
turned his sorrow into this beautiful poem. The poem, however, is lack of rhymes, but it
didn’t make the poem less beautiful than other poem. This poem shows how smart Sapardi is
when making this two stanzas poem beautiful by just using figurative language, pattern of
discourse, and a little bit of repetition and rhyme.

Figurative language is the element that this poem mainly uses. It uses personification
to reflecting the persona understanding and mindset about love; that love is simple, it’s full of
sacrifices and longing. In second and third line, “Dengan kata yang tidak sempat diucapkan
kayu kepada api yang menjadikannya abu.” The line adds a sense of irony to the poem by
simulating a wood that can talk, and the wood is fall in love with a fire that was burning him.
Unfortunately, the wood couldn’t spoke its love to the fire because the fire had burned him
into ashes. However, the wood sacrifices wasn’t in vain since when he was burned by the
fire, the wood gave warmth to its surroundings and lighted up the dark. In fifth and sixth line,
“Dengan isyarat yang tak sempat disampaikan awan kepada hujan yang menjadikannya
tiada” The line also adds a sense of irony to the poem by simulating a cloud that fall in love
with its rain. The cloud kept let the rain fall so it could see the rain longer. By doing so, the
cloud also shorten its life. Until the cloud was no more, it still couldn’t express its love to the
cloud. Again, the cloud’s love for the rain wasn’t in vain since the rain that fell to the earth
became a river so fish could ive, fed the plant so it could grow fruit for animals to eat.

Sapardi made this poem more beautiful by using the pattern of hoping and comparing.
In first and fourth line, Sapardi used same sentence which is “Aku ingin mencintaimu dengan
sederhana.” The lines show that the sentence is to give information about what kind of love
the persona wants to have. Not only that, we could also get the pattern of hoping by the use of
word “ingin” in the sentence. Besides that, the persona also compared his love with the
wood’s love towards the fire and the cloud’s love towards the rain. The persona wishes that
he could love his lover simply, as simple as the burned wood and the no longer exist cloud.

Although only use a little bit of repetition and rhyme, Sapardi had successfully
completed the beauty of this poem. Sapardi only used repetition for the first line which he
repeat on the fourth line, and use rhyme for the word “kayu” rhymes to “abu” and “awan”
rhymes to “hujan” . Even with just a little use of repetition and rhyme, the poem already has
sense of musicalization in it. The little use of repetition and rhyme also makes the poem looks
simpler, yet has an astonishing beauty.

The meaning in this poem is also deep and beautiful. It tells you that to make love
beautiful is simple; you should said it before it’s too late, don’t demand too much because
love is about sacrificing, and the most important is, it makes everyone happy.