Koh Buck Song (b. 1963)
SELECTED POEMS
Moose-Hunting, Canadian Rockies
O loner of the moors,
instinctive affinity of spirit
and seeking wild communion
amid the majesty of the marsh
motivates my desire to meethence this camera-ambush of dawn and dusk,
binocular-combing of the wetlands
once, twice, again and again,
this scrutiny of leaf-flutter and shaggy logs
across the empty expanse
that yields no success, nothing at all,
although your other neighbours—
deer, elk, mountain goat, bighorn sheep—
have all said helloI suppose
there is a time
for everythingback in Singapore,
our revels now ended,
trigger-images will have to suffice
to satisfy this haunting longing:
wildlife oil-painting fridge magnet,
Moosy bean soft toy in the car,
snaps of your stuffed ancestors
at museum mannequins,
but most of all, pedestalled,
moosehorn fern on garden trellis
a consolation prize, anti-trophy
won from roaming the plains
of disappointment, offering,I suppose,
triumph without taint,
memory without murder
by Koh Buck Song
from The Ocean of Ambition (2003)
