THE DONKEY THAT CARRIED BOOKS

By: Rizal Tanjung

–

He walked across the barren plain of discourse—
an old donkey,
bearing a mountain of books upon his back—
thick, dusty, and never read.
The wind passed by, reading the pages,
but the donkey only knew
how to bow his head and walk.

On his back were bound the philosophies of Greece,
in his sack slept the dogmas of the East.
In his eyes—only grass.
In his ears—the echoes of scholars’ sermons,
praising intellects without souls.

He, the donkey who bore the world’s encyclopedias,
yet never knew the difference
between light and a lamp gone out.
He stopped at the library,
greeted the statue of Plato
with a hoarse voice and borrowed wisdom:

“I have read them all—
through the dust upon my back!”

People applauded.
Academics nodded wisely.
Rulers smiled in relief—
for every donkey that carries books
marks an era of peace:
no one thinks,
they only quote and bow.

He walked on again,
crossing the fertile plain of ignorance—
fertile with seminars and honorary degrees.
There grew trees called thesis,
their leaves were quotations,
their fruits—polite plagiarism.
The donkey devoured them eagerly,
feeling clever with every Latin word he swallowed.

He dreamed one day of becoming a professor,
to sit upon the university throne
in a robe of dry grass,
lecturing young goats
on the importance of critical thinking—
without ever knowing what thinking meant.

“Knowledge,” he said,
“is a burden to be carried
until your back breaks!”

And all the student-donkeys
wrote it down in their notebooks,
calling it a new theory,
submitting it to academic journals
published in the desert of academia—
where ink and sand exchange destinies.

Meanwhile,
by the river of metaphor,
birds wrote poems
about how words ought to live.
But the donkey heard only the wind,
mistaking it for applause to his foolishness.

He crossed over,
carrying more books,
toward the palace of politics,
teaching kings about Aristotle’s ethics,
about Plato’s theory of justice.
And the king clapped his hands, saying:

“Truly, you are an extraordinary donkey—
you speak like a book,
and think like a stone.”

And so the palace filled with donkey voices,
teaching other donkeys
about morality and knowledge,
until one day everyone spoke in quotations,
not knowing who had thought first.

At night,
the old donkey sat beneath the moon,
reading his own shadow.
He asked in his dusty heart:

“Do these books know I am a fool?”
“Or am I the fool for carrying them?”

The moon whispered softly:

“Donkey, oh donkey,
knowledge is not a burden,
but the light you feared to face.”

The donkey bowed
not from shame,
but because the ropes upon his neck
were too tight.

Morning came.
People flocked to the market of ideas,
selling slogans, buying degrees,
displaying synthetic wisdom.
In the midst of the crowd,
the donkey stood proud,
carrying even more books
thicker, heavier.

Upon his back were bound the dictionaries of morals,
manuals of critical thinking,
modern interpretations of truth.
He walked among humans
who patted his shoulder
and said with reverence:

“Behold, the wise one passes by!”

None realized
that the sound of wisdom
was merely hooves upon the cobblestones.

His final night arrived
as rain poured upon the fields of universities.
Water soaked the books,
pages shriveled,
words dissolved,
and ink turned to mud.
The donkey collapsed.
The books fell from his back,
scattering like birds without direction.

From the sky came a whisper:

“Knowledge that does not change the heart
is but a weight that drags you to the earth.”

And there,
amid the mud and torn pages,
the donkey smiled
for the first and last time.
He understood
that to read without understanding
is to walk toward heaven
with eyes closed.

So now, whenever you see
someone flaunting a thick book
or speaking in dry academic tongues,
remember:
it might just be another donkey
carrying a library,
believing itself to be one
a strong back,
and an empty head.

“In this age, a donkey with a diploma
is more revered
than a poet who hungers,
for the world trusts more
in the cover of a book
than the contents of a mind.”

Do you still wish to be wise
or merely a donkey
carrying books,
called “sage” by the crowd
when the world no longer knows the difference?

—
West Sumatra, Indonesia, 2025.