Sing Lit Station
A Platform Where Writers And Readers Meet
0

Moving People With Words

Poems on the MRT

Seletar Reservoir by Zhang Ruihe

 

Sound is amplified over water. This explains
the grunts and bellows from the opposite shore:

elephants, perhaps, or some other lumbering
zoo animal crying out for food, or a mate.

That is not what brought me here. Years ago, driving
past the reservoir en route to the crematorium,

I overheard a promise of quiet, whispered
beneath a cloud-wisped sky – and vowed to return.

It's been a decade. Today, the surface ruffles,
undulates towards the bank in shadowed wavelets

rippling on the rocks with a sing-song that forms
a disparate whole with the ruckus from the zoo.

It calls to mind that hippo, back in '74 –
Congo was his name – who escaped his keepers

and for fifty-two days, made the reservoir his home,
passing into legend handed down, down, down

to my nine-year-old self, standing on this very shore,
my parents' hands in mine. I can almost see him,

a single dark glistening blob surfacing
and resurfacing near some narrow inlet, barely

discernible, the waters conspiring to hide
his bulk. As if possessed by a singular will

to elude, evade, slip by the nets; driven to seek
a paradise lost, where to wish is to be

at once perfectly safe,
and perfectly free.

— Published in QLRS Vol. 23 No. 3 July 2024

Zhang Ruihe has published across poetry, creative nonfiction, and short fiction. A former Essays editor at QLRS, she received the 2013 Golden Point Award for English poetry and co-edited In Transit: An Anthology from Singapore on Airports and Air Travel. Her lyric essay “What I Hear is the Murmur” was nominated by Hinterland magazine (UK) for a Pushcart Prize in 2023. She is the author of the chapbook Small Droll Things and holds an MFA in Writing (Nonfiction) from the University of Pittsburgh. Alongside her writing, Ruihe has worked in education, publishing, and the non-profit sector.

READ MORE FROM:

 
 
 

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.

Sing Lit StationEnglish