Ang Mian 2E/06

Prologue

The idea for the poem was initially sparked by The World Is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth, and I drew inspiration from his idea of the loss of connection between man and nature because of man's growing obsession with materialism and modernization. The idea of giving different parts of the poems different themes came from the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind. I wanted to include in the poem the bond between man and nature, the fracture of this connection, as well as the destruction that has been done to nature in our quest for modernization.














i.
Cradle of light, cradle of life-
The swinging boughs of welcoming trees,
Carry the heart of beauty in their out-stretched arms.
Unraveling velvet petals of bashful blossoms,
Coaxed, cajoled, wooed into brilliant bloom,
They exude a modest, blushing yet eager charm.

Once a marriage, once a love,
A beautiful chase, a mesmerizing dance.
They spoke of such grace, such harmoniousness,
Spoke of a lover fickle like the sun and the rain,
Gentle like a falling leaf in the light of dawn,
Yet in wrath, rears her head like a feisty lioness.

She gives us beauty, she gives us life-
Who blesses the earth with birds that fly?
Who paints seven colours in the sky?
From the same hand she gives us death,
A wilting flower, a breathless dove,
Her power is this, to give and take in equal dose.

Oh, she’s so alive, so alive,
Her beauty and her grace, it’s no secret-
It’s all they sing of,
Oh, she’s all we need, all we need.
She, with the cloudless sky as her blue eyes.

ii.
A new muse, a new love,
Mankind with their modern lives and newly beloved
Ask in a tone so forlorn,
Is nature's beauty but a myth?-
When it's their sight that's been blinded
With insatiable lust for material things.

In the night, out of sight,
The haunting cries of devastating- devastated- beauty,
One that has been so easily forgotten,
One that wanders in the dark-
A ghost, a shadow, a mere memory?
She lies asleep, inside her own clenched fists.

A hole in the sky, a hole in her heart,
Then there’s fire, then there’s ruin.
Choking on suffocating toxic fumes,
She watches her creations one by one fall down.
See the caged birds that no longer croon,
She fights, but against such claws, she cannot do much.

Oh, listen to her slowing breath,
Feel the pulse that flutters like a dying moth,
Taste the salt of her stale tears,
Oh, listen to her slowing breath.
She, as lifeless as a withered branch.

iii.
Breath of hope, breath of life,
Unraveling the cocoon fraught with damage,
Some say she’ll come back to us once again.
Don't blink, keep watching,
Listen to the beating wings of a million surrounding butterflies,
We ask if her beauty will still be the same?

If there’s a new life, a new chance,
Will she extend new wings in fearful flight?
Or stay all the same, if she wakes someday,
Despite all the damage, all the pain?
Will she believe it, will she doubt,
If we tell her our weapons would be kept at bay?

If we try, if we strive,
Will the splendour of nature still be restored?
If we mend the hole we made in the sky,
If we look for all the things we left behind,
If we revive the rivers that had run dry,
Will she leave, taking with her our source of light- source of life?

Oh, dance for us,
Come, magnificent beauty,
Display your strength and vulnerability,
Dance for us, if one day you should wake
(We feel the loss, and so we cry: you’re all we seek, all we need.)


Ang Mian, 2E/06