A Walk Through The Sibu Hospital Museum Poem by john tiong chunghoo

poetry in progress
to be rewritten

there was a crowd
a crowd of people
in all the silence
imagined but real
school friends,
teachers, managers,
doctors themselves
who were born here
on the same delivery beds,
weighed on the same instruments
their first cries reverberated
over the Igan River
the hospital had stood over
the hospital that came on
the generosity of Lau King Howe
the philanthropist who
made his bundle and
decided to give the best
to the town - a hospital
to look after everybody
the hospital speaks of our
humble origins and
why in the town people
born before the hospital was demolish
would talk to each other like
they know each other well
the paraphernalia spread
out neatly over the museum
look disturbingly quiet
and cold to a hyper active mind
which could see faces of all school friends
and is wondering whether our mothers
had been on opposite beds when we were delivered

(to be continued
poetry in progress)