Hello all,
Thank you for joining me. This week, I would like to share a poem with you.
For me, poetry is a form of storytelling. Shining a light on our vulnerabilities, it helps us to appreciate the world while relating and empathising with one another. In its most authentic form, poetry can even be compared to water.
If water is beginningless beginning and endless end, if water has no shape of its own but can take any shape, it has infinite possibility —
Arthur Sze
When I lived in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for a couple of years, I became aware of the impact of floods on local communities. I saw the monsoon and extreme rainfall when cyclones hit central Vietnam. I saw people left vulnerable and still doing everything in their power to help others.
Every month, the families of my neighbourhood came together to solve disputes and to collect money for projects such as raising the level of the streets as an adaptation measure to prolific flooding. Overtime, I learnt to connect with these communities and experience their wisdom and untold stories.
This poem is inspired by a Vietnamese woman I saw a picture of during that time. Seeing her sitting on the rooftop of her house during a flood made me want to capture the memory in words, so I wrote this poem and had it translated in English and Vietnamese.
Thank you for taking the time to read as always and if you would like to share your poem connected to water, please do let me know.
