Mid Year

After the chilling start
that left us uneasy
and braced for worse,
March arrived.

Seventeen years after the clampdown on alcohol
when impoverished vendors
furtively brewing spirits in jungles
were chased down, dragged into courts
and jailed, with babies strapped to their backs
while at weddings and celebrations
of the rich and well-connected,
liquor flowed, the red kind, always the rich red,
prohibition was lifted.

We waited
for the streets at dark
to be peopled by drunks,
staggering, delirious, out of their minds.
It didn't happen.

Kelkang happened instead.
Crowds upon crowds
flocking to the tiny village
to drink of the spirit,
for in the last days, I will pour out my Spirit
on all people. Your sons and daughters
will prophesy, your young men
will see visions and your old men
shall dream dreams.

In the churches in the big city,
drums beat urgently
voices rise in worship
bodies whirl like dervishes,
and when the euphoria
does not, will not, abate,
they take to the streets.

Yes, in May, warm, sultry May,
they walk the streets by night,
singing, dancing, praying, chanting,
puncturing the air with cries of hallelujah,
some so delirious they can hardly walk straight,
drunk on the power of the spirit.

As with every revival of the spirit,
darker forces awaken too,
undeniable testimony
a power is at work
we don't all fully understand.

The Muse

What is it about overcast days?
The sullen, grey pall,
the thick clouds
that won't let the sun break through
onto the brooding landscape
and all you see
are closed houses and
the lone human figure
on the streets.
Or days when the skies open
and rain falls in sheets,
battering your windows
and the delicate,
vibrant petals of plants
you'd gone to such pains
to help flower..

What is it about days like these
that waken my inner muse?

If this is January

January is the slow, quiet time of year
when we sit back and relax
after the rush of the Christmas season
and bask in the sun, warming our backs
and eating sweet oranges.

Not a time when crime explodes in our faces:
When young men go missing
and their bloated, blackened corpses are found
and skinny young dark men arrested
and charged nine long days later.
When carnage runs wild, free as blood
as crazed men burst into houses
and slash you to death with
a butcher's knife,
when in a family of six,
five coffins are lined up
the next day.
And on the streets and social media,
church-going people bay for
vengeance and retribution
and of taking the law into their hands.

If this is January
slow, quiet January
I dread what summer will bring.

Hello again, January

Chilly mornings
wrapped in fog,
leaves shiver
on thinning trees,
the sad wintry sun
cannot break through
the greyed out landscape.
Inside the house
echoes bounce off white, naked walls
stripped of Christmas trimmings.
Hello again, January,
to you I raise
a gently steaming cup of tea.

The Long and Winding Road That Was

A confession now that 2014 is well and truly in the past. In 1994 my mother had died of cancer, in 2004 my sister had a fall where she broke her spinal cord and became a paraplegic. How apprehensive I was when 2014 arrived, wondering what calamity might be in store. I could hardly bring myself to look at this cover of Our Daily Bread with Alex Soh's beautiful shot of a cyclist travelling down a rugged, winding road between hills and valleys. The curves in the road seemed to me to conceal something frightening. As Christmas time arrived, I breathed easier. The year seemed to be letting itself out quietly. But as news of the QZ8501 came, I thought no, anything could still happen. Eventually it was only this morning that I could bring myself to look at this picture with an easy mind.


To the good Lord who guided me through the long, winding road that was 2014, I am so deeply, deeply grateful.

Leave-Taking

                                

It's on its last legs, the monsoon.  A nip in the air's found its way in already.  And soon, very soon, these angry skies and rain and fog will give way to warm sunshine and clear blue skies.  The cold will close in on us by late afternoon and we'll snuggle into thick socks and woollies, and warm icy hands over heated coals. Mornings will waken us to crisp, cloudless sights that we can see forever and beyond through.

But I'll miss the sounds of the rainy season. The whiplash crackle of lightning, the boom of  thunder, the rain pouring down in torrents. Frightening but oddly comforting. And the sights of the wet season. The brightly coloured umbrellas, people moving about in blurred outlines outside wet car windows, the little Pol Pot skulls clustered on the glass, the world fogged over and greyed out. Uniquely beautiful.

Au revoir. When it leaves, I shall pick up my phone and earphones and comfort myself to sleep with sounds of falling rain.

Against the Cosmos

I came across this picture on Instagram this morning, taken by a young man from Mexico - a very young man because he just graduated from high school a few weeks ago and says he's off to college soon. Now there are pictures and there are pictures. Some are flawless and perfect but leave you cold. Then some speak to you on a deeper level, making an instant connection that you can't quite put a finger to. This one awoke poetry in me.

On the edge of a world

I don't always understand,

I stand, a small presence, 

because I must

because I am

because in this infinite world

it couldn't have been a mistake

that I am.

My presence may be blurred 

in a world 

I don't always understand.

But I am. 

Here's to you, gess8

The Fog

And it comes again

this fog

stealing in silently 

clouding over in slow degrees

all that was crystal clear,

like the fog in my mind does

sometimes.