Born Free

See

See these birds

A poet's world a doorless cage

So much to express

So unflinchingly love flies

Free

See

See these heads of grass

Upon my shoulders they rest

Flirtingly in a cheerful breeze

Sweetly snuggling up

To me

See

See these hard weathered stones

Moist in the morning dew

Beneath lies soft creatures

Mosses fill the cracks a-hugging

Like I to Mom Dad

See

See these rice fields

And this boy home from school

Stood he

Amidst his beloved grass

Earnestly searching

For the very first time

The blue deep sky

Begging for manna to fall

with a rice bowl Mom Dad picked.

He cried freely unknowingly

Why their strife and cane

My pain

See

See the rays of dawn

Sleepy mountains awakening

Still the sun is not harsh

The daffodils still smile

The rivers still sing

The nature of me

Speaks my soul born free

See

See this dam

Sounds of cascading memories

Found the silent depth of winter

And the revelry of diving ducks

Writing a winter's tale

Twinkle toes rippling

A many splendour things

Set my koinobori flying high above

And verily free

(Footnote: This poem is dedicated to my Mom and Dad, and the young couple who had wanted so much to adopt me. Also dedicated to my lovely Primary One teacher Lily Wong of Sunny Hill Seventh Adventist School - Kuching, who taught me my first song of love - Jesus Loves Me. I remembered very well how my classmates and I were chaperoned to the recording studio of a local radio station one day to sing this song. Last but not least, this poem is dedicated to the thousands of children who have been killed in Gaza by the occupying force of Israel in 2024 alone. Which writer can write anything meaningful with the symbolism of koinobori, the happiness and innocence of children and not least, the freedom of being, without ever thinking about these children at the back of one's mind in these troubled times? It is truly heartbreaking.)

Rubbish Dump Dump

 

Rubbish Dump Dump (silly song)

Throwing rubbish

Can be fun

Proclaimed Mother 

To her son

Use this plastic

Not any one

In Yatta's name

We'll get it done!

O, mother!

Cried the son

Why O why

So troublesome

Why this plastic bag?

Tis' Special One?

Can't we use

Any One?

Don't dare ask

You my son

It is eight

Time has come!

Quick, the gate's open

you'd better run

Passed nine

You'll be done!

- I tell you

You'll Be Done!

Dear O dear

Thought the son

Talk too much

No bento lunch :(

That won't do

I'll be done!

Okan Hi! Hi! Okan

Your wish's My command!

Off I run

To the rubbish dump!

(Chorus)

Throwing rubbish

Can be fun

Sing this song

To our young

Tis' our song

Rubbish Dump Dump

In the Land

Of the Rising Sun

- Joseph Lai 

Today

 

TODAY

On today's

Rose-tinted petals

Of yesterday's

Youth

Upon thy futon

I offer you

Sasanqua

My dear Sakura

For I can create dreams

Of tomorrow and

Stardust forever

But only here

Today

My love is real

Fluffy-pink and bright

My heart for Sakura

Thank you

Sasanqua

So freely you give 

of your blossoms

So too can I give

Of you today

And ring my suzu

At thy shrine

- Joseph Lai 

Falling Leaves of Autumn

 

Falling Leaves of Autumn

Imagine, a leaf floating gently down a tree in the autumn of life, twirling a-spinning in the air like a ballerina in the last Movement to land with such sweet delicateness, without a sound, called Grace. 

We have just witnessed the getting on of a new retiree, the beginning of an old gold - yellow, brown and red of age. Now stripped and parted from the main - the busy a-bustling vascular system - it now sit, grounded and looking up what that has been, before. 

To retire gracefully is to love the serenity of being out. Out of the active system yet keeping your new self steadfast afoot of the tree of life, engaging in a disengaging way of a gentle old soul who neither fight nor struggle but rustling and dancing along, listening, smelling and seeing with renewed senses the beauty of Life with none other than our old whimsical Wind. 

Let her bring you where your destiny be. Gold, yellow, brown or red, you nourishes the tree with your sweet kindly presence. Till one day, if you could imagine, stopping at the impeccable stillness of that ethereal ballerina, frozen in timelessness. Give yourself a good long bow. 

The lark that you are in retirement finally returns to Good Earth. Back to the system we have never left actually.

Wisdom, if you would imagine, is to realize the heavens is here and now. Enjoy it to the fullest. Be free. It is so noble to be falling leaves. Falling yet not falling but rising to the heights of the heavens.

- Joseph Lai

Like Fireflies

Like Fireflies

While the nation slept

the celestial heaven shone

Tiny sparkling jewels are the stars

yet brighter are you

Little torchlights flickering about

belied the spirited flame

In your hearts

there is hope

Though Chek Jawa will be no more

happy will be the memory of you

who cared and dared to walk with her

in darkness and in mud

We met like tiny glass pieces

broken and shaken in her kaleidoscope

to sparkle that once

even as the nation slept

- by Joseph Lai (2001)

Poem dedicated to volunteers of Chek Jawa Survey 2000

Remembering Eugene Tang

 Dear Eugene, 

Remembering the wonderful time we had as classmates and our adventure in Tasmania. You will always be in my heart. Rest in peace, my dearest friend. 

Invertebrates of Singapore Rain Forest

The invertebrates came before us and made the world as it is today. They surround us everywhere and outnumber us exponentially beyond comprehension. On land and in the sea, they will still be around when human race vanquish. Below are just some examples of invertebrates living in our rain forest, for example MacRitchie. Our failure to recognize their ecological services extended to us via the dynamism of a healthy intact rain forest for which they are in part responsible will certainly lead us to our ruin.

Red-hearted Beetles



Trilobite - Nature's Peter Pan - young forever!



Ant-mimicking Spider

Cyana - an Arctiine moth pupa - Nature's first conservatory!

Moth

Round pink millipede

Giant flat millipede

Long-necked longhorn beetle

Atopos - a carnivorous slug

See my Youtube video: Forget Not Our Living Rain Forest

New Painting: Autumn Has Come to Oxford

Title: Tammy's in Love

Intuitively it came as I paint. I found myself whistling a-whistling a tune of my youth. Tammy... and she is still so much in love. Her heart reflects the soft beauty of early autumn and she fills my own heart all so joyfully.

Painting of Sentier Littoral de Gigaro

A new painting for my sister.

Sentier Littoral de Gigaro

Chek Jawa Days

Chek Jawa days are just full.

Remember that windy and sultry day? I led you by the hand through the woods. You appeared hesitant at first. I had your hand in mine, and gave you a squeeze to tell you I was near. Two lonely figures we were, in a tunnel of trees and shrubs, walking upon the soft and winding trail. It might rain, they said, but I was undaunted.

The sea was near. We stopped momentarily to look up at the rustling of the leaves and felt the breeze in our faces. ‘That’s the wind’, I said. ‘And that’s the sea too!’ I added in jubilation.

No sooner, the glaring shimmer of the sea broke through the gaps in the woods like a chandelier of lights caught in the wind. We quicken our steps and gingerly picked our way among the rocks and boulders on the rugged shore.

And there you were, bubbling with excitement. You took fancy in almost every piece of broken corals and pebbles. If only you could see the twinkle in your own eyes and the quiet joy in a father’s heart. For a moment in time, I felt immortality and that we could walk on and on till time eternal.

Did you not feel the desolate vastness of the sandflat beneath our feet and the sky above our heads? Would you remember the warmth of a father’s care when I pulled your socks off so that you could stand in the pools left by the receding sea?

You ran around pointing out all the starfishes you could find and asked in the most natural way if you
could keep one in the fish tank at home. I laughed. It better they stay in the sea, I said. You held one for
a moment in your small palm and then let it go. Time could only be counted in sea anemones, sponges
and fishes trapped in the pools. We were a hundred meters out and there were starfishes everywhere.

Two hours passed within a breath and the rumble of the darkening sky signal our return to shore. As
usual, you tired easily, and asked to be piggybacked. Why not, I said. There will be a time when you will
grow up and I will not be able to do so again.

As soon as we were back to the rocky outcrop, it began to drizzle. We took shelter under the canopy of the seashore nutmeg and got our raincoats on. The sea rose steadily and covered the meadow of sea grasses like the drawing of the curtain to signal the end of a show. It was time to go.

I look back in fond memory how two of us retraced our path along the forested shoreline under the rain. We took off our caps just for the fun of it. The moistened trunks and roots looked so enriched in tone over the smooth boulders. Even the pebbles became alive in livid colors.

The rain also brought the birds back into the tiny forested home. We too are going home. Every creature, big or small, has a home to return to. With you in my hand, I bade a final farewell to the families of starfishes that had finally returned to the swollen sea.

I wrote this, my dear son, so that this memory will stay with you forever. I hope you will grow up to feel the same as I do for the home that we share with all these wonderful creatures. I hope you too can experience this unique place with your own child and carry on for yourself the immortality I felt when I was there with you.

I am dedicating this memory to you and hope you will discover for yourself that the true sense of being is being with nature.

Love,

Dad

That Trees Do Cry

That Trees Do Cry

It could not have been less obvious. Even the foreign workers working nearby would have realised
something was amiss. A building that was closed and of little significance to them whatsoever, and yet, there was this constant stream of people - individuals, couples and families - that trickled in like wandering spirits, lingering about quietly in as much as a whisper, drifting in and out of the silent stairways, and loitering before bolted doors and unlit windows.

Hitherto they took their cameras out now and again to steal a shot here and there without getting in
each other's way. The respectful silence that permeated the air betrayed the mutual understanding that each one has for the privy of the other's need to be alone to dwell in his or her own timeless place of memorable fondness and youth.

I brought my 10 year old son along just to relive the little moments that we once had here. I vividly
remember one rare breakfast of sandwiches and coffee in the cafe by the fountain in the inner
courtyard five years ago. I couldn't remember what we chatted about, but I remember we had a
magazine and he was reading something aloud to me. I remember feeling very proud as the elderly lady at the next table beamed an approving smile at the proficiency of this young reader.

However the strongest piece of thread that binds me still to this place can be found on the parapet of the main stairways. Here it was, and still is in my eyes, the memorable resting place that me and my siblings sat with Enid Blyton's books in our hands. We loved this spot and would sit here for a while before adjourning home.

I had wanted so much to share this feeling with my son. That I did sitting there with him for a while and we had pictures taken for good measure. However, what happened next, swept me off my feet in the most enchanting way.

'Daddy... look! A slide.' I looked up and saw him sliding down the smooth terra cotta tiles. 'That was
exactly what I and my brother and sisters did too,' I smiled.

Never in my wildest dream that out of my babe's mouth comes a distant voice from my past and so miraculous a gift of vision that only he, my son, could ever have presented me so dearly.

We left shortly after and walked slowly round to the side of the red-brick building for one last time.
Surprisingly, there were still some books lining the window sill inside. They looked forlorn and sad against the algae-stainted pane, leaning out as if to take a last glimpse of us old faithfuls.

It seemed goodbyes were hard even from the inside too. Long gone were the noises of the children and the incessant steps that greeted the arrival and departure of the library visitors. Anguish draped heavy like a burial cloth.

As I walked to my favourite Sea Beam tree at the end-corner of the building, I wondered if I, amongst the thousands of old faithfuls, had done enough to help conserve this place of our youth.

A carpet of tiny flowers greeted me under the Sea Beam tree. Some fell on my head. As I stooped to pick
up some, I found a dying caterpillar lying motionless amongst the fallen flowers. It must have fallen from the high canopy too.

I looked up to see my son who by then was riding happily about in the carpark on his scooter. Will he and his generation ever know that trees do cry when a caterpillar dies? I sincerely hope so, and understand why dad and others alike are so sad today.

- Joseph Lai, 3 April 2004

In its place - a gaping hole of an entrance to the 350m Fort Canning Tunnel. A very short tunnel for a cherished place of memories and growing up for Singapore Merdeka Generation especially. 

Cross Island Line on Pale Blue Dot

Recall the number of minutes of travelling time we were told can be cut on the upcoming Cross Island (MRT) Line through our precious forest that we are willing to risk and then read Carl Sagan's reflection below. Would you not be laughing and crying at the same time?

Seen from about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles), Earth appears as a tiny dot within deep space: the blueish-white speck almost halfway up the brown band on the right.

Pale Blue Dot
- by Carl Sagan 1994

Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there -- on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

The house is burning down, Nero, and you are fiddling away?! Hahahaha. 

Read also: Celebrating Our Rain Forest in SG50.

Eternity of a Dream

One cool December morn 

I woke feeling the wind blowing 

the frosty sea in my heart 

and painterly chased 

the fleeting clouds 

over the lee of my dreams.

The real journey does happen in your mind and I have a little notebook for a conspirator to listen to all my secret longings. Can you feel my heart beating upon the canvas pouch? I do. I really do.

Relevance of the Coastal Hill Forest to the Marine Environment of Chek Jawa

Introduction
Rising steeply from the sandy beach to a height of 21m, the coastal hill at Chek Jawa may seemed remotely connected to the shallow sea beneath, where lush meadows of seaweed and sea grasses thrived in the shallow, well-lit and nutrient-rich waters. However, the link is very much alive though not easily perceivable unless one witnesses how rainwater runs down the hill during a monsoon downpour. 

Export of nutrients to the marine environment

Dissolved nutrients, along with guano, leaf detritus and rock minerals, trickle down with the rainwater to the beach below, where it is released slowly through the sand to the sea, and readily absorbed by the marine flora or consumed by detritus feeding fauna. 

Leached nutrients (Trono, 1997) and leaf detritus (Odum and Heald, 1975) are two of the most important elements in the food web that associating landforms (including mangrove) contribute to the vitality of the inter-tidal zone. The abundance of marine flora and fauna in Chek Jawa bears testimony to the importance of the coastal hill as a keystone community in the marine environment. 

Physical buffer and natural breakwaters 

Physically, the steep coastal hill is imposing. It is a natural fortress make up of large igneous boulders that goes right down to the beach, and act effectively as a buffer against casual intrusion to the sandy beaches from inland. The obscurity as well as the relatively undisturbed state of Chek Jawa owes much to this rugged feature that are almost impregnable when aided by the long hours of high tides. 

The coastline integrity of Chek Jawa owes much to the series of protective finger-like boulders jutting out to sea at the base of the hill. Like natural breakwaters, they offer protection against accretion of the sandy beach. Without doubt, the coastal morphology of Chek Jawa, predominantly truncated by these mighty boulders, had evolved with the tidal flow to create the unique marine features (including the lagoon) that we find today. 

Unique flora and beach-dependent terrestrial fauna 

Apart from being an ecological and protective partner to the marine environment, the rocky coastal hill forest is a special habitat by itself. It harbors a very unique primary flora that is distinctly different from the terrestrial vegetation found further inland. These are tenacious survivors in the plant kingdom, as equally adaptable as plants found in the deserts. Coastal trees such as the Seashore Nutmeg, Sea Mangosteen and the Sea Olive are constantly exposed to strong dry winds, salt sprays, high solar radiation and temperature, and scrounging a living from nutrients obtain from its own leaf detritus and animal guano. 

These are amongst the last remaining stand of littoral plants that have survived the centuries undisturbed, on extremely shallow soil found atop rock ledges and crevices, and sandy substrates. One such rare tree, Mischocarpus sundaicus, once common in Geylang, Changi and Ubin, cannot be found elsewhere in mainland Singapore now. 

A flock of over 50 native Red Junglefowls inhabits and breeds in this quiet coastal forest. At low tide, they flock to the beach to eat worms, mollusks and other organisms. They are dependent on the beach for food. The coastal forest, in turn, depends on them and other rooting birds for their nutrient-rich guano. The activities and life history of these animals are thus not compartmentalized or confined in their own habitat. Food webs are very complex and cross invisible ecological lines that separate adjacent ecosystems. 

In conclusion, Chek Jawa's six special habitats, namely coastal hill forest, sandy beaches, mangrove, lagoon (sand/mud flats), coral rubble and the rocky shore, represent an integrated system or community of linked ecosystems.  Physical and biological alterations will pose and adverse and irreversible consequence to the ecological balance in what is recognised as the marine environment of Chek Jawa. 

Footnote: 

The above paper was written for the group submission put together on the invitation by the Minister of National Development, Mr. Mah Bow Tan, in 2002. Lead authors were Professor Teh Tiong Sa, N. Sivasothi and my good self, with contributions from Ria Tan, Francis Lim and Yap Hui Boon. 

When Rain Meet Wind

There is a kind of abandonment
how you come meet the earth
and sparkle for just that little whilst
before glistening a teardrop farewell
down a quivering grass blade.

Still you remain till like a memory
stirred by a gentle wind
you rose invisible and
in shades of white
set the clouds in the brilliant sky.

Graced with fleeting lightness
you skip hither and tither
a young heart just born of gladness
only too clear that he the wind
is near.

He is there seen but unseen;
existed because you existed.
He guides the way you toss and heave
hand in hand paints white on blue
of imaginations wild and free.

When rain and wind meet
there’s sweetness in the air;
they are happy just being.
Though the grass may quiver once more
the days for skyward rendezvous are everlasting.

- Joseph Lai

Advocacy for Sungei Mandai 2003 - Jewel in Jeopardy

True to weather, October has been wild and contrasting. Inter monsoon wind and rain are confused and if I may add, as erratic as human affairs playing it out under the moody sky in true Thomas Hardy fashion.

First came the good news for Mandai mudflats. It finally found official recognition and is set to open in 2022 as a 72.8ha nature park to be named Mandai Mangrove and Mudflats. A modest beginning, hopefully, for better things to come.

Not long after, though, we were suddenly struck by the great loss of Subaraj Rajathurai - an outspoken advocate for our native wildlife - who passed away at 57. Hitherto he lived to see for himself a ray of hope shining for Mandai mudflats.

It was back in 2003 that I wrote and submitted an essay entitled 'Jewel in Jeopardy' (appended below) to The Ministry of National Development advocating the preservation of Sungei Mandai mudflats.

Today I am drawn by the unfolding events to relive the moment how I put pen to thought sixteen years ago and to make sense of time since passed and of people the likes of Subaraj and I, and many others who, at their own behest, represented a spot of earth such as Mandai mudflats with a feather of hope in our cap for conservation.

October also saw the successful opening of the Jewel at Changi Airport by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The feeling of national pride is evident as he paid tribute to Jewel as an idea or symbol that epitomises how in Singapore, we as a people must dream boldly to create new possibilities. As he put it - "Dream big, apply themselves and nothing is impossible."

It made me smile an everlasting smile like a quiver of my little feather. For these are age-old familiar words and ideas that still echoes from the distance of time immemorable.

But far beyond the politics of monuments and memorials, humble folks have from time to time answered the call of wild geese to dream the hopes of our beautiful world.  Not from glass palaces and gold-trimmed stairs,  but from the wildering heights of mountains, plains and seas.

Somewhere in time, a young wild goose found his jewel on such a rare spot of earth and called it his own. To him belongs the family of all things and the inheritance for all. My beautiful world, my all.

Jewel in Jeopardy
Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, located in a district fondly referred to as Kranji by many, sits pretty along the scenic waterway of Western Johor Straits. Though much change had been effected by our nation’s underlying need for water, the damming of several river systems - namely, Kranji, Sarimbun, Poyan and Tengah - did not seem to eliminate the ‘naturalness’ one still feels and sees especially from the vantage point of a boat ride along this strait.

In a word, it is a visual feast; one which is fundamentally enhanced by the remaining coastal vegetations that had survived such change and the diversity of coastal birds that grace the sky above.

At the heart of this naturalness, Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve sits like a crown jewel. ‘Gem’ was how Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew described Sungei Buloh in his congratulatory note written in the Visitor Book during a recent visit.

He is not alone in this sentiment. Of the 5000 Singaporeans ‘from all walks of life’ solicited for feedbacks to URA’s Concept Plan 2001, ‘they all felt there was a need to protect nature areas and Sungei Buloh was mentioned at the time’ - Mr. Wong Tuan Wah, Director of Park Management, National Parks Board (ST, Nov 12, 2001).

Indeed, this gem is highly valued and a great price has been paid for it. ‘The land was actually zoned for an agro-technology park. It would have been a profitable economic venture. Instead, we decided to turn it over to the birds’, said Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong when he opened Sungei Buloh as Singapore’s first wetland nature park in 1993. ‘Considering that we have a very high population density of about 4,400 persons per sq km, this is a big commitment to nature conservation’, he said (ST, Dec 7, 1993).

Come December 2003, another 10 years of ‘opportunity cost’ or investment would have been added to this value. However, one should not forget the crown for the jewel.

The gem, that Sungei Buloh is, has in the millennia been set securely in the ‘silver and gold’ of adjacent ecosystems (see map). All are linked as close ecological partners, and any detrimental changes to one may affect the others irreversibly. Recent exclusion of Sungei Mandai from URA’s draft plan poses questions about this vulnerability. If ecological links are ‘broken’, our crown jewel and all our investment may be lost at sea forever.

Prof. Murphy D. H., a well-loved lecturer whose decades of tutelage at the National University of Singapore had moulded several generations of biologists, had this ecological link firmly in mind when he wrote his paper ‘Birds, Mangroves and Man: Prospects and Promise of the New Sungei Buloh Bird Reserve’ published in 1990. (Essays in Zoology, Papers Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Department of Zoology, National University of Singapore).

Simply put, the bird life at Sungei Buloh will be adversely affected should ever Mandai mudflats be reclaimed. His study revealed that ‘Mandai does not provide the conditions required for roosting waders but the mudflats next to the Mandai mangroves are a major feeding area for the birds that roost at Sungei Buloh.’

Clearly, the management of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve cannot be confined within its boundary. At stake are not only the birds, but the collective investment put in through years of commitment and hard work by the National Parks Board, volunteers, NGOs and business partners alike. Also at stake are the opportunity cost invested in Sungei Buloh ever since and our reputation as a serious conservation strategist.

Sungei Buloh’s destiny is ecologically tied to Mandai mudflats. Undoing it could jeopardize everything we hold dear.

Map of Western Johor Straits
Legend:
PS - Pulau Sarimbun
SR - Sarimbun Rocks
HR - Herald Rocks
HSR - Horseshoe Reef
LCKM - Lim Chu Kang Mangrove
SBWR - Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
SBM - Sungei Buloh Mudflats
KM - Kranji Mudflats
SMM - Sungei Mandai Mudflats