Lee Tzu Pheng (b. 1946)
SELECTED POEMS
Excluding Byzantium
on objections to living near
a home for the elderly sick"That is no country for old men."
The ageing poet meant another place,
the body contemptible, incompatible
with the passions of the mind:it is easier, somehow, to bear such ostracism;
art has the compensation of its own realities;
art can mould pain into singing birds,
and scarecrows image saints in holy fires.Outside of art, what consolations thrive?
Decrepitude may push you to the side of life.
Sickness can make a stranger of the best-loved face.
Mortality's a monster, some think better
relegated to a hidden place.
Hospices and nursing homes may reek
of worse than age; a lingering pall
sour the taste of all human endeavour.
It takes much more than empathy, perhaps
to receive the aged sick into our midst
without protest, even unvoiced, while
life points us to our expected end.How many will have art to keep them safe?
How many, art to house our grim reminders?
We know we but banish ourselves to claim
"this is no country for old men".
by Lee Tzu Pheng
from Lambada by Galilee & Other Surprises (1997)
