poems from malaysia : ee tiang hong / TENGGARA 6- Kuala Lumpur 1973

TENGGARA 6 / 1973
Dept. of English/ Univ. og Malaya
Kuala Lumpur/  Malaysia

                                                  Ee Tiang Hong

                    On a suggestion that I make a song about you


You are my home and haven after the bright resthouses
Of the heart, as in the heat of day the common sparrow
In the shade of rambutan, in the lap of mangrove
The cow coarase-throated at dush, and the night-jar
Song in the marshes of you evening.

Between you and me there always will be understanding,
I have bathed in the many seas of your joy,
And have tasted without bitterness the salt in your air,
Your straits are my straits as on the horizon
Out hopes at sunrise, and at sunset the hours of your despair.

I do not have to watch your contenance at every turn
Of the tide as birds of passage each passing season,
What I may or will, the right thing, is all there,
In the covenant of my bones, unwritten constitution.


               The times, the morals

They alone prosper, it appears,
Who can tells
Which way the wind blows,
Who will seize
The tide as its flood.

The thought is sickening

Am I am sick
Of talking
About moral and politics,
For taking alone
Will not stay
A pondok's hunger,
Talking alone
Will not allay
The anger and the sadness
Of a slum.

And the thought sickens
The heart is shame,
That knowing all these,
And hearing the hiss
And the froth
Of the sea's conspiracy,
And feeling all these,
I believe
Neither you nor any of us
Possess the simple courage
To leave the comfort of the times,
To go forth into that eerie calm
And stare
Into the cold eye
Of the snoring typhoon.

  EE TIANG HONG
  (Malaysia)

           (TENGGARA 6- 1973 - P. 18- 19.)