Again Thinking

In a few days it will be our thirty third wedding anniversary.

The years have summed up into a happy marriage and three wonderful daughters.

But again thinking, as one always does on anniversaries, I realize it was not ordained that this should be so.

We were from different races and cultures but were unified by a common language (English), a common colonial experience and a common humanity.

We disagreed on many things. We still do. But it did not and it does not matter.

Because we possess the magic ingredient for happiness between two individuals:

honesty.

Thank you Ivy.

The honest poem I wrote then:


bonds

not to scare you, but because we build bonds
words adhere more than we realize,
a word sometimes pauses quite unknown,
implants and lies dormant as life turns;
to blossom into alkaloid reality only when
we have lost the inner eye that shows beauty
as this stream of cold water running
to wash between our toes and minds.

not that I am frightened, that we build bonds.
can we really reclaim our moments of peace
once they fulfill themselves and are gone?
will memory be honest enough to restate
how it was a look could say everything
and a fleeting touch was a cold wind
lingering. a new born faith silent and content
as we lived within our toes and minds?

from After the Hard Hours, this Rain, Woodrose Publications, Singapore, 1975