SILENCES MAY SPEAK

SILENCES MAY SPEAK


“On the brink of an amen / the mystery retreats, leaving/ not questionings,/ not confidence,/ but simply a silence, / absolute, waiting.” (From the poem ‘ The Brink Of An Amen’ by Lee Tzu Pheng.) The following poem was written after reading “Silences May Speak, the poetry of Lee Tzu Pheng” by Felicia Chan.

Her verses are like the breath of jasmine
misting the dawn air!
She is wordsmith Extraordinary,
each word petals the air with hybrid fragrance,
each sentence the flowered branch
speaking ikebana grace into life’s wild garden,
each image the full bloomed flower strutting,
coquettishly bidding to draw you into its nectar,
each alliteration the stigma waving,
tremulously coaxing music out of the wind
blowing in your ear!

Even when she stumbles in a sentence
& stalls because of despair,
her paragraphs are bouquets Against The Next Wave*
And when she pauses,
we stand with her at The Brink Of An Amen *
& tremble at the Prospect Of A Drowning*
in her perfumed silence.

And in that silence, absolute, waiting
are the words of the Spirit, unfurled petals
yet impelling a fluttering of our hearts
& testifying that her silence is always loudly
overflowing.

Read, hear that breath-bated silence between
words & then like the breeze-tossed Vanda
Joaquin, dance the Lambada By Galilee*
to a music of no sound.

(* Titles of four volumes of poetry by
Lee Tzu Pheng)