WHAT WE DIDN’T SEE

We didn’t see the seven mountains ahead of us.

We didn’t see how they were always ahead,

Always calling us,

Always reminding us there are more things to be done,

Dreams to be realized,

Joys to be rediscovered,

Promises made before birth to be fulfilled

Beauty to be incarnated

And love embodied.

We didn’t notice how they hinted that nothing is ever finished,

That struggles are  never  truly  concluded,

 that some-times we have to re-dream our lives,

and that life can always be used to create more light.

Al last, I can read a Ben Okri. I’ve always  wistfully read the back cover of his books in bookshops  thinking,

 Oh well, maybe one day ther’l be an earth quake and books will be strewn all over the streets.

Well, that has happened, there are books strewn  all over the streets, selling like bread.

The above excerpt is from the two opening paragraphs from Ben Okris-Songs of Enchantment.

I read the first page in the bus last night and I don’t wanna go ahead. Strange. Yeah, I want to think about it first, knowing I have another horde of chapters yet to be read. : )

You’re fresh, inimitable.

Fine,

Like they pronounce good quality.

Your reflection:

 silver and gold

like loyalty.

strutting confidently with,

an assured sense and

a dash of weird

hey Cowboy

your picture is complete.

My heart is slowly thawing

With every lay of pure sunlight that peeps.

 By silent meditation

And private invitation

To observe and consider the world

I rejoice.

I’m just a tiny wispy

Who sometimes gets lost

When situations overwhelm

I’m just a tiny wispy

Who sometimes gets lost

When situations overwhelm

2008

this moment is complete

Between snaps of

Consciousness

  I  wonder

Again, whether

 This is all a dream

 A really realistic Dream where,

I wake up with the aroma

Of flavours tasted

And the shiver of-

Near feelings confessed

The warmth of a Warm evening ray

Unblocked by the chilly evening wind.

Hey Lilly

Is this real?

 I dreamt we had rice wine together

In tiny budded royal blue porcelain

Embedded in white

The child playing a constant din with that plastic toy

On the dvd machine

The plastic beads inside broke out, like-

A dry pea pod at noon

And skidded down the stairs, settling

Between the bottles of salted eggs

And a midst your heavily accented words

I understood

 You once had dreams too

Now tangled up in others’ dreams

 Your partner,

 Your children

 Your work

Like the sweet potato vines in your back yard

 Growing among the nettles and thin mulberry.

You dreamt, you’d travel across, along and above the great sea that surrounds you.

 To listen to words served on foreign tongues

To sling a camera around your neck and pose

Long long minutes below monuments.

Dark glasses and sunny hats in place

Speaking Portuguese

Like you’ve seen in them lip-synched television programmes

The Kway Teow is cold now, down stairs.

 You wanna put it away fro breakfast

So you lift a tendoned  leg

And instead pull out a book off the shelf of many books.

-get me an African recipe out of that-

I trace a finger on the Suji and Kidney recipe.

The dog smells the page

Licks my face

The child is snoring on the floor

 You pour me another syrup starch syrup.

The house of therapy

To describe the carefree talks we  can have

Me on the single couch

You sitting on the pillow, ripping seams.

The child, an extra.

Therapy here means

The weight I’ve shed

As I speak with truth

Of sometimes ad hock existence

Like me backpacking back then

Lo! The scolding you gave. About putting myself in line for rape-

You are wise Lilly

I am done being a tomboy. I am, well, I have girl friends now.

I’ m a little less dreamy.

It’s hot

We eat agar agar

 Your other girl wakes up to pee

-Already 2pm mummy, when you gonna sleep ah?-

We are tired

But day break represents interruptions

Schedules and responsibilities

The night should last forever

The winking stars

Should never blink

Or fade

Or shy away from day

Coz this moment is complete as it could be.

Action drams, cartoon network sap and town music filled my mind

I forgot about the sound of nature

 The secrets whispered by birds to other birds

By crickets to other crickets

 By falls to the river

 I listened

 At last my mind began to remember

It began to refill itself with stories

 From the old  central

 Deciphering hyena’s laughter

 And what the cider told the grass below

 as they softly kissed

Beckoned by the wind

It was peaceful

Peaceful

I’d spent too many days indoors

Turning knobs and locks and switches,

 And pressing remote controls

I’d forgotten how to sit calmly listen,

Think,

Hear the sounds and breath in inspiration

A gift

 Which technology tries to slowly make me overlook

As I you tube

 And email

 And blog

 And chat…

I forget blue speedos and staedler pencils

Black rendits

And Tesco fullscaps.

Merged with everyone.

So I sat at the water’s edge dreaming

Peaceful dreams of sand beaches and

Clear springs of mountain water-ah-

For a moment as if in a stance, felt it

Heard it

 The soft calling of ants

 The gentle murmur of the trees….