ampulets

  The last post of this “notLockDown” Poetry sharing, I realised I have so many more poems and poets on my shelf to share! But all things must end. And since no one poem would be fitting, I share something that is not a poem. It is epistolary but so poetic in its construction, intensity and profundity - and written by a Tax man!

I got my numbers wrong. Since I started this Daily Poem countdown on Day3 of the notLockDown, technically today is Day 29 and not Day 26/30. The penultimate poem.

Some weekends ago at the start of the notLockDown, I went for a walk at Macritchie with a friend on Sunday. And it was packed! Today I took the afternoon off and escaped into Macritchie at about four. It felt like I almost had the nature reserve all to myself. Nature has this poem for you!

Good news! The notLockDown will end after 13 June. I realised my countdown is inaccurate since I started on Day5 of the 30-day notLockDown. Oh well. But here is a poem again that speaks directly to the experience of isolation and connection. 

Last night I read some poems by an angry man - young then, no longer. I was feeling tired and the poems were, frankly, depressing. In their rightful anger, the poems nonetheless felt murderous even - in their anger. It came from a place of weakness seeking power. He sought in the poems a power and a channel for that anger to bring action, change. But it felt to me that he came away disappointed. The words - the words didn’t feel like he believed the words were enough. He was a teacher. Perhaps this sphere of influence frustrated him too? Oh, it could also be that the translations are bad!  

[Nothing as romantic as willows, crabapples or chrysanthemums grow in my balcony. Last weekend, the fierce sun demanded that I give my trays of tiny but precious succulents a treat!] Earlier this year I remember watching YouTube videos with WW in her living room about Sung Dynasty poems (haha, that's what ex-lit students do when they hang out). The  talkshow featured Taiwanese High School students  sharing their favourite Sung Dynasty poems with a special guest.  Not long after, another friend NB told me about a BBC series called "Chinese characters" - 10min podcasts on interesting figures throughout China's history - and one episode was on Sung Dynasty poet Li Qing Zhao (1084-1155). 

Today I take a break from sharing a poem. Because this picture is sufficient. Every day the hills and the trees do not move from their place on the earth, but every day the light shifts - cutting through the clouds and meeting the dust and vapour and rain and - our retinas.

I was reminded by a friends’s FB post that 2 days ago was June 4th. Today’s poem is in memory of that. 

S ometimes having a structure or an unrelenting restriction can paradoxically give space, freedom and energy. It's the same way that resistance builds strength, collision propels speed. There's something in physics about this, I am sure. After all, humans are three-quarter water, not vapour. 

After a week of really serious poems and a whole lot of serious meetings, I wanted to share a funny light TGIF kind of poem to de-stress. But I found myself drawn instead to re-read Jorge Louis Borges (1889-1986)

So before the clock strikes midnight, let me share today’s poem: “the send-off” by Arthur Yap  (1943 - 2006).

I wanted to write about Arthur Yap today. But I ended up re-reading the poems by Goh Poh Seng instead. 

Day 15. We are halfway through this "not-Lockdown" selection of poems. Today's poem is by the Sufi mystic Rumi again. It is very short, only 4 lines. But my reflection on the poem is pretty long. It was actually written for the online zine "Casual Days", started by photographer Rebecca Toh. In Issue 2, the theme was Night, and she had asked me to contribute a reflection on the theme.  So I reproduce below what I sent her for the online zine.