Recollection - First Poetic Impulse Poem by john tiong chunghoo

my first poetic impulse
was in my pre school days
i must have been only four
years old lying sweet on the
kitchen floor one fine morning
sucking on my milk bottle

out on the tip of a pointed roof
a magpie had gathered itself
comfortably and started singing
its heart out to the sun just beginning
to warm up the new day

its song was edged like the roof
pointed here and there
in the rhythm and fractured tone
of a disconcerted soul
complaining all the world's
injustices to the heavens
like a chirpy woman crying mad about
poor treatments of her in laws

it sang for so long i was
provoked to ask the bird
what it was pining all about
about the black and white
of its days?

i asked and it sang
i asked and it sang
beak pointed to the sky

i asked and it sang
i asked and it sang
until it thought it was done
and flew away without a note
leaving a trail of silence and
melancholy on an empty
roof, the morning and -
an unrequited heart