churchcamp!

Dear Readers -

Here's a slightly angsty poem i wrote at church camp:


Rocks

The girl on the beach asks me
if I can take her to the rocks
where I sat to watch my
memories kill themselves with
each futile crash
the day before yesterday.

I smile, wistfully, and decline.
There are some places
where you can only go
to watch yourself die
once.


But life is short, and i won't waste it!

Came across this quote today: "Living is more than a skill, it is an art." I think i'm far from mastering it, but in searching for simplicity and happiness i think i'm getting closer, day by day.

A huge thank you to lanabel, kengyi, pat, jess, jo, john, bum, uday, zyl and the other church friends + CAPpers for helping me get through this week!


Below are some of the other little observations that I made at church camp; enjoy!


Road to Port Dickson

We roll along, snail-paced
and men with faster wishes pass us by.
If I tied my dreams to a carriage,
would they run so wild and free?

Or will they drift,
as we do now,
with only trees by the wayside
for greeting?


Away

The soft-boiled sunset
dripping across the plantations
beckons us from our
gilded cages.

We fly down highways,
past billboards,
crunching gravel away from home.

Even ice-cream tastes better
when we are on holiday.


Home

Nasi lemak for breakfast;
we sit and talk
of how to cook kambong with belachan,
of the distance between Uncle’s office and Great World City,
and of relatives back in China.

Eleven Singaporeans
clustered at a round table –
we re-create a coffee-shop.


Childhood

There is no sunrise
in the clashing of the waves;
the golden pastel fades into the
sky behind me as I stare
out towards the sea,

and am reminded of
many childhoods, of cycling down
crowded jetties at full speed
and dangling feet in
many waters, of calling
seabirds as they passed and
seeing seashells on seashores.


Before the Dawn

The clouds part;
a seagull steals the promise
from the sunrise
and the lighthouse
paints over it with its strobes.

Some say the waves
dashing the rocks at my feet
are persistent, but I say
they have reached
the end of their journeys –

No better place for an end
than on the shore
before the dawn.

The Straight Times Editor