Garden City By Gilbert Koh

Let there be trees, the man said, and lo and behold,
there were trees – rain trees, angsanas, flames of the forest,
causarinas, traveller’s palms and more – springing up against
the steel and concrete of the expanding city.
Even as the true towers of the city climbed higher
and higher for the heavens, the trees were planted, replanted,
transplanted, watered, fertilised, and groomed to grow
and grow. They appeared overnight, abandoned the
chaos of jungle, bent to the will of man, grew in straight lines,
in squares and rectangles, in allocated corners,
in car parks, along highways, outside banks and buildings,
faithful to the commandments of urban developers.
The hard lines of architecture were softened,
the rain did fall, the green did gently, gently grow,
and in his seventieth year, the man was pleased,
as he rested, as he viewed his work, as he felt the weight
of a nation’s soil run slowly through his old green hands.

[Sarah] Exorcism

Grace Chua

My mother believed (the Lord is my shepherd)

in ghosts (I shall not be in want).

Frangipani and jasmine (your rod and your staff),

the flowers of graves (they comfort me),

terrified her. Every seventh month

in the festival of the Hungry Ghosts,

she would send up burnt offerings

(you prepare a table before me)

to her mother’s mother (in green pastures)

her father and her father’s father (beside still waters)

and the third daughter (in the presence of my enemies)

who was never born

(you anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.)

And when my grandfather died,

(he leads me in paths of righteousness)

the huge black moth (for his name’s sake)

that flapped at us across the kitchen table

(I will fear no evil)

and clung like wet hair (for thou art with me)

to the walls-

that was him (I will fear no evil)

also.

So when it came time

(yea, though I walk through the valley)

for my mother (the valley of the shadow)

to be a ghost herself

(yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of

death)

she would not go (though I walk) quietly

trailing through the house,

(surely goodness and mercy shall follow me)

haunted by (all the days of my life)

the ghosts of her live children

(and I will dwell)

and the memories of her days

(in the house of the Lord

Forever).

Grace Chua

Conscience

Conscience is instinct bred in the house,
Feeling and Thinking propagate the sin
By an unnatural breeding in and in.
I say, Turn it out doors,
Into the moors.
I love a life whose plot is simple,
And does not thicken with every pimple,
A soul so sound no sickly conscience binds it,
That makes the universe no worse than 't finds it.
I love an earnest soul,
Whose mighty joy and sorrow
Are not drowned in a bowl,
And brought to life to-morrow;
That lives one tragedy,
And not seventy;
A conscience worth keeping;
Laughing not weeping;
A conscience wise and steady,
And forever ready;
Not changing with events,
Dealing in compliments;
A conscience exercised about
Large things, where one may doubt.
I love a soul not all of wood,
Predestinated to be good,
But true to the backbone
Unto itself alone,
And false to none;
Born to its own affairs,
Its own joys and own cares;
By whom the work which God begun
Is finished, and not undone;
Taken up where he left off,
Whether to worship or to scoff;
If not good, why then evil,
If not good god, good devil.
Goodness! you hypocrite, come out of that,
Live your life, do your work, then take your hat.
I have no patience towards
Such conscientious cowards.
Give me simple laboring folk,
Who love their work,
Whose virtue is song
To cheer God along.

Henry David Thoreau

[Rachel]