You chose a country to love more than others.
But the country wasn't your garden.
The people starving for a living flag,
a prophet who could part the sea again, or dam the river,
throw down his rod and make magic of their pittance,
their hot, hungry zinc rooms, their sea-salt lives,
are not the pink hybrid hibiscus with crush-soft petals
and rich, red mouth in the centre.
No. The people you made believe were you,
who could shout down walls of hunger,
do not thrive on water dreams,
a plant-green thumb, or manna.
They do not give you violet buds,
anthuriums, or red flaming lilies.
You saw that.
But in your Sunday matinee way
you loved the country and
the people
who are the briny trees on the coastline
of an ebbing sea.
Your daughter writes that
and your soft heart
into immortality.
- Ann-Margaret Lim
