By Kirpal Singh
CULTURE REDEFINES HISTORY
Who would have thought it’s possible
To undo centuries of traditions
Trapped and shaped by norms galore?
On New Year Days, we wear black —
Really — it’s the fashion these days!
Even the Communists prefer black —
Ditching the red to history’s dustbins!
Tough lessons History teaches,
So we can make better judgments.
Alas the mind resists and rejects
Revisions which suggest undermining.
How weak our wills and our resolves!
I’M THE GOOD SHEPHERD
I bring you glory and a new life-
History written in the Lamb’s blood
And the Future assured in Love.
We hear and try to fathom meanings
Written in blood — cold and hot,
Alas, no revelations on the horizons
And no blessings either in the making.
And so we toil and wait,
Toil and wait for a new world,
Where waiting will be no more
And promises delivered on call—
Such, such shall be the Arrival
Of a fresh understanding,
Of what it means to be human,
To know flesh and blood and the
Soul’s search for a new heaven,
And a new earth brimming,
Sealing centuries of waiting,
Fulfilling expectations of yore,
Making past and present and future
In a miracle beyond reckoning.
This will come to pass as we sleep…
Kirpal Singh is a poet and a literary critic from Singapore. An internationally recognised scholar, Singh has won research awards and grants from local and foreign universities. He was one of the founding members of the Centre for Research in New Literatures, Flinders University, Australia in 1977; the first Asian director for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 1993 and 1994, and chairman of the Singapore Writers’ Festival in the 1990s. He retired the Director of the Wee Kim Wee Centre.
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