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Poems on the MRT

彩窗 / Stained Glass Window by Denon Lim Denan

 

彩窗
林得楠


我以白纸一张
一张
折起两岸风光
河水捎来你的姿色
皱叠了一扇
一扇
百年的对望

窗是一种等待的容颜
诗是一种容颜在等待
河无法逆流
水可以潺潺
我的抬头是你的偶然
我的顺流
牵不动你的河畔
所以我平躺如一行诗
清澈见底
以彩装
填补失色的波光

小记:《彩窗》写于2001年,诗情就在新加坡河畔。2017年初,我在河畔继续寻找老屋的窗情,但窗似乎已不复有情,新加坡河的诗情犹如在波纹中逐渐淡去的窗影。


Stained Glass Window
Written by Denon Lim Denan
Translated by Shelly Bryant

a blank page –

in a long line of pages –

I fold up the scenery on both sides

the river carries your beauty

crumpling into a window –

in a long row of windows –

a hundred year gaze
the window, a waiting face

the poem, the face of waiting

the river cannot reverse its flow

but the water can still flow gently

my upward glance is your happenstance

my downstream drift

cannot move the shore on your side

so I lie flat – a line of poetry –

clear to the bottom

using coloured adornments
to fill in the ripples of fading light

Note:
“Stained Glass Window” was written in 2001. The poetic inspiration came from the banks of the Singapore River. In early 2017, I continued searching for the charm of old house windows along the riverbank, but it seemed that the windows had lost their sentiment. The poetic charm of the Singapore River, like a window’s reflection gradually fading in the ripples, also seems to be dissipating.


Denon Lim Denan is the President and Chief Editor of Lingzi Media and Honorary President of the Singapore Association of Writers. He won the second prize in the Chinese Poetry category of the Golden Point Award organized by the National Arts Council in 2001 and the first prize in 2003. He was awarded the Bauhinia (Zijinhua) Poetry Contribution Award in Hong Kong in 2020 and won the first prize in the Global Bauhinia Poetry Competition in 2024. He has published three poetry collections.

林得楠,玲子传媒出版社社长兼总编辑,新加坡作家协会荣誉会长。2001年获得国家 艺术理事会主办金笔奖华文诗歌组第二名,2003年获得第一名;2020年获得香港紫荆 花诗歌贡献奖,2024年获得紫荆花全球诗歌赛一等奖。已出版三本个人诗集。

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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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