the singapore i love - john tiong chunghoo

the Singapore i love is 

when the city holds up

its clouds, playing pom 

pom girls postponing

a drizzle so that the trees 

in the lanes and streets

- with their intermittent 

swinging branches and 

leaves - could hum songs 

of cheers to those walking 

hand in hand savouring 

the warmth in each others' eyes

the Singapore I love is one

modern metropolis that holds 

tightly onto to its past treasuring 

it like a confidante she could draw 

strength and inspiration whenever

she is lost in the sea of ideas, home 

or abroad, techno or cultures, 

fashion, culinary, pop or arts that

tiptoe, waltz, jive, foxtrot, tango, cha cha, 

pirouette, twirl and swirl into Singaporeans' mind

the way they still call China Town 

Ngu Chia Jui (Bullock Cart Water) 

which invariably transports us back to those 

years when life was tough like a buffalo's

even water was not easy to get

rationed, and distributed by Indian 

workers who everyday came shouting 

water water on bullock carts

Or the Samsui Cha Bo 

(women with the red headgear) 

solid and strong as granite amazons 

who still bow and carry

the City of Lion on their backs

The city they too helped

build up brick by brick, sweat and tears

Or the Tekka, Tekka (below the bamboos) 

they still use to call the entrance to Little India

the bamboos are no more an icon there

but how can you forget such pristine

gifts of heaven, such auspicious growth metaphors? 

Singapore that has inched and risen fast as a 

million bamboo shoots to wave in reflection of its humble roots? 

Serangoon, Serangoon, Little India, Little India

Even Shah Rukh Khan and Asywara Rai love 

to tekka tekka here now

And Kandang Kerbau Women's 

and Children's Hospital (Cattle Coop) 

well wind back Singapore 15,000 days

and you would hear cattle bleating

and Indians workers careering round your

young smiling pregnant wives or 

newly blessed babies smiling in 

the warm arms of their mothers

now dont ever slight the place, 

or its namesake for this 'Cattle Coop' 

has helped deliver half the city's lions 

and lionesses who are all ready to take

on the world, cattle or wolves

---

john tiong chunghoo (born 1960) Sarawak (Malaysia)

Source: Poetry Atlas