2 poems by arthur yap (1943-2006)
and some say the day begins and ends with a song...


poem one-

dawn

dawn in the quiet key of light
utters a whole paragraph of hues
in the early mutter of an aviary.

clear upward life of night,
tensile & then quickly certain:
the lively key to morning
is mysteriously sharp, already laden
with the still, angular mirrors of noon.

the day obtains itself.
the evening obtains skies and dawn.

poem two-

evening

one thing to mark is lovely
see the weight of sunset
perched convergent on the horizon
washed by the tide culled from here,

seagulls rising
are erased by an arc of light
refracting direction of wings,
water out-folding
seals the earth beneath
and throbs over a mile of wind

Letters to my son - kent nerburn

Once many years ago i was present at a total eclipse of the sun. I had climbed to the top of the high hill and had sat down to wait. It was early morning, slightly past sunup. Birds were singing in the trees around me. Far below on a hillside cows were grazing and horses rustled in the tall grasses.

When the moment came, the sun began to darken. The horses were silent, the cows stood still. The birds ceased their chirping. As the sun disappeared behind the moon, the earth became still. The cows sank to their knees and the birds placed their heads beneath their wings.

Only the ghostly corona of the hidden sun remained to cast a fragile light on the enveloping darkness. There was no wind. There was no sound. The light of the sun had been taken away from us and the world was cast into a great darkness.

At that moment something momentous happened: I no longer feared death. I felt annihiltion, but annihilation into a oneness. I thought of my uncle who at that moment lay dying thousands of miles away. I thought of his fear and his loneliness and wished for all the world that he could have been with me for those seconds when the sun gave up its light.

I can't put a name to the knowledge I gained. It was too far beyond the human for me to understand. But I know it had to do with death, and I know it had to do with the great darkness into which we must all go.

There was a peace there, a peace that surpasses all understanding.

When fears of death ovewhelm me, as they do at moments of sickness or great danger, I think of that hilltop and the birds with their heads tucked beneath their wings. All of us - me, the birds, the cows, and the horses - had been taken up into something larger than life itself.

Our selves had been obliterated; our individuality taken from us. Yet there was no impulse to scream against that obliteration. We were subsumed into something so great that we accepted it like the tranquil embrace of a long-sought sleep.

If that moment on the hillside contained truth - and I think it did - we do death no justice by measuring it against ourselves. We are too small; it is too great. What we fear is only the loss of the self, and the self knows eternity like a shadow knows the sun.

So, fear dying if you must. It takes from us the only life we can understand, but that is a worthy loss to mourn. But do not fear death. It is something too great to celebrate, too great to fear. Either it brings us to a judgement, so it is ours to control by the kind of life we live, or it annihilates us into the great rhythm of nature, and we join the eternal peace of the revolving heavens.

In either case, I believe in my heart that it is ours to trust.

In the brief moment when I stood on that hillside while the earth's light went out, I felt no indifference and no sense of loss. Instead I felt an unutterable sense of gain, a shattering of all my own boundaries into a vast sense of peace.

If that was a moment of death, death should hold no terror, and we should embrace our dying as a momentary passage into the great harmony of eternity. Perhaps we cannot hear that harmony now. Perhaps we even hear it as a vast and empty silence. But we should not be deceived. That vastness is not empty, it is a presence. Even in the greatest places silence has a sound.

--------------------------------- ----------------- ----------------- ----------------

we only saw the flight-paths of birds that day. no eclipse was in sight. beside us were fellow companions and a book of poems. still, the same silence visited us that evening and left a vanished trail on our lives, the little that remained of the two years spent in college, the many hopes we carry within and the uninviting futures which lay ahead.

-unwritten notes on a final stop-
ap field trip to chua chu kang lawn cemetery class of 2004 / 2005-

-to you who left your notes behind-

hi people, been trying to catch some of you online but to no avail. hope to have a chat with you soon...will simply pen a quick thought here to catch you all within a span of time.


khai & ray - instinctual jungle airborne lads...remember your frolic by the stream at central catchment reserve? i gave clearence for you guys to test the silty waters on our gp eco-trip to the forest. that day remains memorable in more ways than one. you shared your rustic best and helped make a classroom out of canopy and soft sand. hope you'll find time to reclaim abit of your love for the outdoors in ns. during my days, we used to be sent to tuas area for gpmg firing. it showed a slice of singapore in its jurrassic-best...i remember the red flares fired across the dark skies and the songs of cicadas in the night. pandan cakes, mess-tins and milo with my platoon mates, not quite waiting for dawn to end. not a bad life afterall and a portion of life never to be lived again. once you realise that, you'll know what to do from there, stagnant as the days may seem but still...




nat-king- kang & seokie...your video screams supreme and makes you a ready-spawn of the mtv (that's quite passe by now) hybrid. Strange how memories can come in quick successions, pulsating the high moments that will always haunt your recollection of a fateful day at ikea. You are a closet chef in the making...mixing and remix are your call of the day. Why lock it in the kitchen? Blaze the mind and forge an unknown road...Cook and braise more memories for us. Mmm, info-com at nus might just be your cup of tea, try la? Seok, the pic you gave permission to be shown to the whole cosmos. Am sure you like it!















hannah, rachel, fel, daena, cerina & lay kwan...panic not in uni-life. your essays must evolve with time. being 'anal is good'...pack every sentence structure with awe and beyond all roundabouts, be guided by a faint vision in mind. your hard work will take you somewhere if you allow yourself time to trip, fall and grow. edit till your mind is content but watch the deadlines...fuss up your tone, polish your points and be the most ruthless editor of your own accomplishments. others may do crap and submit their script. and if intellectual fulfillment is what you seek, claim it with your very soul...your intellect is God's gift to you. tried and tested, it can also build and heal (hannah- the last line is for you)


















jae & sealz...indefatiguable, indestructible, fun-pack of the lot and nothing quite defeats you. keep the class in line, gel the lost, shove the bros and bring back the wanderer. sometimes good sports can quench an arid heart; basketball, captains' ball, netball are all good ways to bond a class with a million zillion schizoid personalities. Retain your shine. Leap like a seal. JC days are too short to let it all go away on one shot. extend the hours of conversations with friends. i have not named you 'mutants' for a reason. be humble beacons for the class, over many more seasons.

O God,

here i am,

ceaseless, furtive, unfree.

still

you call me to be whole and
true.

one,
constant image of love
for you.

O God, faithful and good

i rest in you.

amen

-------------

With the gift of listening comes the gift of healing, because listening to a child or a friend until he has said the last word in his heart is healing and consoling. Someone has said that it is possible to ‘listen a person’s soul into existence.’ I like that.

Catherine de Hueck Doherty
http://www.madonnahouse.org/doherty/index.html