The Waiting (And Patiently) by Dominic Chua

“Indeed, these days I find the only people who write good letters are the old or those living in refugee camps or those in countries not yet ’wired“. The dispossessed refugee, especially, robbed of his home, his future uncertain, becomes a consummate writer. He picks up his pen and begins to bleed himself into words.”
— Andrew Lam, “Ode to the Hand-written Letter”

How true it is: that words
Never proceed out of satiety and
Abundance, but almost perversely,
Overflow from hunger, ache,
Urgent need.

The instinct to write—and its
Corollary, to pray—are easily overtaken.
Sleep taps you from behind, cradles you
With tender arms and promises
A profitable procrastination;
And it's always the same dreamless
Darkness that descends, swiftly,
Blanket-like.

I remember long, gray afternoons of
A waiting with paper. Briefly home from NS,
Experiencing the keen edge of
Separation, knowing that half your
Soul lay half a world away, with
Nothing but words to bridge
The interminable distance.

This Christmas Eve afternoon returns me
To those days, with its mottled
Blue-gray sky, its cloud blanket that
Invites slumber and stupor.
Simeon's prophecy still holds:
The heart-piercing sword of sorrow
Necessarily accompanies a waiting
For words, indeed, for
The Word.

It is only with the sharp stimulus
Of loss, the expectancy bred of
Needy waiting . . . only then can
The Word take human form, only then
Will the love letter be written.

24/12/2000

© Copyright MM, Dominic Chua. All rights reserved.