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Poems on the MRT

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Towering by Fiona Sze-Lorrain

 

Are you interested in stealing
instincts? Or in explaining
secrets of a world
that rules with age and equidistance?

Layer by layer, wind
seeks a message,
a voice for Fate. The sun,
its seas,
even birds in passing,
dictate science at the bidding of will.
An existence
unaffected by seasons.

So much about an unfathomable life.
A round universe with plans for tomorrow,
never its final word.

I can’t speak for accidents elsewhere,
only forms, lines—
thoughts stretching to dialogue
on charts or water.
Believe me,
answers are small

even if one day you travel
in light years,
even when light becomes endless
as a star dies, another
emerges, in astonishment
and for no reason.

Published in The Ruined Elegance (2016)

Credit: Ferrante Ferranti

Fiona Sze-Lorrain is a writer, poet, translator, zheng harpist, and editor. She writes and translates in English, French, and Chinese. Her work includes a novel in stories, Dear Chrysanthemums (Scribner, 2023), five poetry collections, most recently Rain in Plural (Princeton, 2020) and The Ruined Elegance (Princeton, 2016), fifteen books of translation, and three coedited anthologies of international literature. Longlisted for the 2024 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, she was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Best Translated Book Award, among other honors. www.fionasze.com

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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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