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Moving People With Words

Poems on the MRT

Metta by Esther Vincent Xueming

 

On the mat, I open my heart to loving myself and all beings.

May I and all beings be happy.
May I and all beings be healthy.
May l and all beings be free from suffering, in body and mind.

This is the mantra l repeat in various permutations, reaching from self to
home to estate to country to continent to world to a place beyond time and
space and back.

Can one walk through time and space and into the self to return to the
original state of lovingkindness?

Is the heart just a lotus waiting to bloom?

I sit knowing that nothing is permanent.
I sit releasing attachments.
I sit like the golden pothos by my window, leaves reaching out for the warm
breath of sun.

— Published in womb song (2024)

Esther Vincent Xueming is the editor-in-chief and founder of The Tiger Moth Review, an ecojournal of art and literature based in Singapore. She authored two poetry collections: womb song (Ethos books, 2024) and Red Earth (Blue Cactus Press, 2021), and co-edited two environmental anthologies: Here was Once the Sea: An Anthology of Southeast Asian Ecowriting (2024) and Making Kin: Ecofeminist Essays from Singapore (2021). She is also co-editor of two poetry anthologies: Poetry Moves (2020) and Little Things (2025; 2013). Esther has served as guest editor for Mānoa Journal (35.2), University of Hawai’i Press (2024) and as guest regional editor, Asia for a special eco-themed issue of The Global South (16.1), University of Mississippi (2022). Esther is a 2025 National Centre for Writing (Norwich, UK) Singapore Writer-in-Residence. A literature educator by profession, she is passionate about the entanglements in art, science, literature, spirituality and ecology. Besides teaching and writing, Esther is an Usui Reiki Master and ANFT Forest Therapy Guide whose practice involves relating to the more-than-human world in an embodied, heart-centred way.

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Poems on the MRT is an initiative by the National Arts Council, in partnership with SMRT and Stellar Ace. Produced by Sing Lit Station, a local literary non-profit organisation, this collaboration displays excerpts of Singapore poetry throughout SMRT’s train network, integrating local literature into the daily experience of commuters. Look out for poems in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil in trains on the East-West, North-South and Circle Lines, as well as videos created by local artists and featuring local poets in stations and on trains. The Chinese, Malay, and Tamil poems are available in both the original languages and English. To enjoy the full poems, commuters may read them on go.gov.sg/potm.

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