at long last!

Dear readers,

After a long absence, tkwek returns today with a poem and a very short thank-you essay.

Every musician has had the experience of not being able to forget a tune that keeps running through his head. Here's a poem about a musician who can't forget the tune - of life.

The essay is rather self-explanatory, it expresses sincere gratitude (:

That's all for now!

(Maybe if you'd just open your eyes, the world would be a brighter place)
The Straight Times Editor

Forget-me-not

Thinking thinking thinking,
He tried to concentrate
On the little running black notes
That scurried through his head.

The theme that flowed on endless
Was one of tarnished sorrow;
It spread itself within his mind
Where tears could barely follow.

It made him cry, it made him sigh,
It stuck with stubborn will.
He tried to shut it out of mind,
But it kept on playing, still.

He knew not where it came from,
Nor where its chords would end!
Despaired, he sang it to himself –
But not to fellow man.

That tune – it flowed on through his brain,
Mysteriously evolving;
It changed in size and shape and sound,
A shadow always turning.

It climbed the hills and breached the turns
Of countless wrong neuroses,
Growing, swirling, always expanding
In little musical doses.

Slowly its voice and timbre changed,
No more a crying youth,
It laughed with the winds of love and life,
And grew a wisdom-tooth.

At last it reached a seeming end,
A satisfying finale –
But oh how he wished to live life again –
“Da capo al fine”

He grabbed a pen and wrote it down,
From its first note to its last,
He spilled his gladness and his tears,
And spilled his humble past.

When he was done he laid his pen
Beside the creaking bed,
He took the dripping manuscript
And laid it by his head.

That tune would trouble him no more,
But it would never, ever rot –
For such is the life of every man –
I sing, thus forget. me. not.


Pastor Coleborn

A few weeks ago, a pastor from Tasmania visited our church.

A small-built man in his sixties, Pastor Coleborn sported thick iron-rimmed glasses and a thick, fatherly beard that gave him an air of academic approachability. Occasionally energetic, usually cordial but always smiling, he gave straightforward and concise messages that touched our daily lives every week, and turned us – in varying degrees – into different people. His words were so thoughtful and well-chosen, and his topics so varied, that he well and truly energized our small congregation.

During his stay, he saw visitors come and go – an elderly lady from South Africa, a couple from India, students from Australia – and spoke to them about their lives and beliefs, inviting them back to the church. He also deeply loved God’s creation, and would join our jogs in the park, telling us about the avian residents of each area.

What struck me most about him was how he made it a point after every Church service to talk to every one of us. At lunchtime, he would often come up to us, grasp our hands in those warm and firm palms of his, and ask us about life, about school, about pastimes. In gentle tones, he would talk of every subject under the sun – music, creation, science, the future – and always ended off his chats by patting us on the back, looking us in the eye, and telling us to trust God for the week ahead.

Today, Pastor Coleborn preached his last message to us.

After the worship service, a long line of people queued up at the door to shake hands with this great but humble preacher, hoping to say something to him before he left Singapore, hoping to show their gratitude for his time with us, and hoping, perhaps, to receive last valuable words of encouragement from him. I, too, joined the line.

Finally, it was my turn. I gave him a small gift to remember me by – it was a bookmark of the marble sculpture David, from the Galleria del Accedamia that I’d bought on the Orchestra trip to Italy, with a note from me written on the back. Pastor Coleborn said he’d remember me, and placed the bookmark between the well-worn pages of his Bible.

Michelangelo had been an artist who shaped the beauty he saw in God’s creation with his God-given talents. Pastor Coleborn, in his beautiful sermons and sincere chats, had used his gifts of working with people to shape our hearts. He was an artist too, and more.

Thank you, Pastor Coleborn.