Cynocephalus variegatus

7am. 21 jan. 2009. i was onboard 157 heading to college. it was crawling it way along lornie road. the empty lanes soon giving way to a sea of damp lights on either lanes. and the march of cars piling towards the city dawn. my bus paused at the bus-stop just opposite caldecott hill.


i saw it. something flew across the road just beyond my double-decked window...close to 400m away. it soared (glided?) above the peak traffic that was heading west. i thought it might be another sea-eagle or a hawk that strayed off its flightpath. and then, it gracefully latched onto a tree just beside a bus-stop.

and goodness me...it was a fairly large colugo indeed. i wasn't fast enough to take a snapshot with my phone-camera. but i stopped breathing, seriously.


http://www.wildsingapore.per.sg/discovery/factsheet/colugo.htm

that rare gem glided right above the traffic. what led it so near the edge of urban life? a nocturnal mammal, was it returning to its favourite tree, to nestle for the day ahead? it struck me that its home locale was ironically close to the very forces that seek to diminish its habitat & range.

one of singapore's rarest mammals, did the colugo also learn to adapt amid the noise and sprawl that pierce uncomfortably close to its forest home? we assume its numbers would decline or even become extinct altogether. our predictions may not be valid afterall.

my morning was broken bright with a colugo in flight. i feel canonized. my secret sight scores high on a scale of ten on ten. just an ordinary thursday on a humble bus to school, just feeling, all glowing, most blessed...

this night, me blessing

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)
i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

that's a very raw setup of my new cubicle. i kept it neat this time. but since i cannot stand blank spaces and white walls, i picked the pictures that mean most to me on this journey to bring some colour and poetry to my new working life; i wanted to remember the classes that left more than a mere impression...their gratitude and joy that helped me to uncover and share my own. yes, students, people and classes come and go. still, one batch or two and sometimes more than a handful inspire us to remember them for life.

hopefully, our capacity to remember people, and celebrate moments will not just be applicable to teachers and students. there is alot more to life beyond the classroom- the friends that shelter us, the families that fed us and even travellers or strangers who make a brief transit in our lives, forgetting they have left an echo of their heartsongs behind.

I like Buechner's definition of the term:

Remember:

when you remmeber me, it means you have carried something of who i am with you, that i must have left some mark of who i am on who you are. It means that you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we ever meet again, you will know me. It means that even after i die, you can still see my face and hear my voice and speak to me in your heart.

For as long as you remember me, i am never entirely lost. When i am feeling most ghost-like, it's your remembering me that helps remind me that i actually exist. When i'm feeling sad, it's my consolation. When i'm feeling happy, it's part of the way i feel.

If you forget me, one of the ways i remember who i am will be gone. If you forget me, part of who i am will be gone.

"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom," the good thief says said from his cross (Luke 23.42).

There are perhaps no more human words in all of Scripture, no prayer we can pray so well.