Sungei Buloh wetlands reserve (2006)

 

Egrets, sandpipers, mudskippers, mangrove plants, roots, leaves, mud, brackish water

Overcoming Famine

The photo is the “Pulitzer Prize” winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan Famine. The picture depicts stricken child crawling towards a United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away. The vulture is waiting for the child to die so that it can eat him. This picture shocked the whole world. No one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer Kevin Carter who left the place as soon as the photograph was taken. Three months later he committed suicide due to depression. 

In the past few years, insanely greedy, heartless wall street speculators have more than doubled the price of food in countries where people live on less than $1.00 or 2.00 per day. Around 30,000 people die of hunger each day. An estimated 25,000 of them are children 14 & under. They are NOT dying because of a food shortage (tons of food rots in warehouses every day), but simply because they have no money. Meanwhile the rich get richer and their hearts grow colder. Our world won't be civilized until everyone has enough food. Please Share this and insist that very serious & intense wars on hunger & extreme greed be started asap!

PLEASE: Take a part in your local Occupy Movement or support the Movement.

Yes, the problem isn't food shortage but unequal distribution of food, and greed has resulted in those companies who are capable of supplying food trying to control prices to maximise profits, causing those in other places unable to afford the food. We all can do our part to address the problem of famine in our own way. It all starts with the power of one.

Nature Sketch - A Poem about the Twelve Apostles in Victoria, Australia

Gazing in awe I stood in rapture

At the wondrous sight mine eyes captured

Beholding its panorama – what beauty!

Away my breath it took with its majesty.

My numbed senses were hereupon thrilled

Heightened still as the southern winds chilled

Which had then teased and ruffled my hair

Now induced shivers without much care.

O could mere words ever suffice to define

The enchantment of this spectacle so fine

Which hath once resided in my dreams –

A realm where the silent sentries reign.

            *          *          *          *

Stacked precariously above the saline spray

Withstanding the onslaught steadily they stay;

Motionless as if time hath been static

Though of ravages their faces bespeak

That trace back immeasureable time

Of being sculpted in unending mime

Whence they were once part of a land drawn nigh

Ever changing unseen to human eye.

They lie bruised and battered to this date

Yet bizarre, they do inspire of late.

            Oft I’d be spellbound by Nature

            Entranced so much my heart would cheer;

            Lost in wonder as I relax my mind

            Willing to free myself from worries’ bind.

            Here I am, peering agape at the churning froth

            Tracing the shadows that veil like ebony cloth

            Of the trapped towers confined to isolation

            (Lonesome not as they huddle in congregations)

            Over the milky crests that rise and quell

            Spill atop platforms as the green-blue swells;

            Continuity rules this marching raid

            As rank upon rank advances to break

            Makes one wonder if one should fall

            And be swallowed in swirling maw

            Dashed upon the pedestal one could be

            Before one would depart vertically!

            Herein, I duly affirm my theory

            That Nature is beautiful but deadly:

            Belittle not Her raw strength nor beauty

            Else thine suffer in Her neutral fury.

They lie

Paying homage to the wall they face;

Whereupon unbroken miles it would stretch

Far beyond canvas of an artist’s sketch.

It regards them with impassivity

Aloof perchance, with its immensity,

Since from the shingle its flank rises sheer

To such heights it appears to domineer

Over their disintegrated forms lain in piles –

What a sharp contrast to its own massive profile!

Yet with dignity they remain resolute

Unperturbed, unfazed, not an iota subdued.

For they’re wrought of an ancient home continental –

By friction’s absence across the far Ross

Where Antarctic’s breath is brought and not lost.

Carving crannies have the gales been in inclement blight

Ailing arches do torrents assault with full might.

Their presence thereby serves as a display of grit,

Of tenacity, of will to resist any blitz;

Whereas the wall, albeit almost condescending

Is but a façade of bravado retreating

Driven back in time as it lies smitten

Its frailty of substance thereby written.

Yet it’s cloistered from the marauding crests

That are buffered and tamed upon the breasts

Of sentinels which ne’er forget their ties

For their blood runs deeper than melted ice.

It lies

Paying homage to the warriors it faces.

‘Tis amazing how mine perception o’er time grows

Changing as their juxtaposition gradually shows

The clues which reveal its nature beneath the view

Manifest to me as lessons derived anew,

Inasmuch as their shapes indistinct at first sight

Soon cease to defy description each new insight,

Conforming to familiar silhouettes in my mind

As over each lil’ detail I survey – and find:

            From mere stump, one becomes a pinnacle

            That rises skyward, like a church spire.

            A smaller figurehead settles staring southward

            Away from the wall, though never appears awkward;

            Calmly it doth regard the onrushing minions

            With unseeing eyes of a gallant ol’ Christian.

            More than once have I descried a stocky pillar

            With uneven girths which wrap nearly parallel;

            Their carunculated sides a banded brown hue

            Even shades vary with strata of old and new.

            Some are capped with faint sheen of tussocks green

            Or topped off by scant growth of tufts unpreened;

            Others remain devoid of stalks on sloping roofs

            Like shaven figures of sages gathered unmoved.

            A common root, a shared plight

            Similar they appear, yet dissimilar outright:

            Every craggy nook carries its own tale

            Of elements’ toll, of weakening shale,

            Each minute scar bares a unique story

            Of parting’s pain, of vessels unwary.

            An overall ruggedness completes their portrayal

            Of Nature’s last bastions braving Her timeless trials.

            *          *          *          *

High above hung a gentle summer glow

Its warmth dissipated through the crisp cold

Felt by the outback, seeped into my soul

‘Ere a last call signalled departure’s woe.

Traipsing my way back amongst the wild heath

Kicking up dust that constitutes this cliff,

I cast a backward glance at the silent sentries

Which have stood vigilant over countless centuries.

            Deep in my mind’s recesses, a silent vow made

            That a sketch of them I shalt write to serenade.

----

(Poem written by Jimmy Tan in 1995-1996)