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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=523710" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Who Dares To Take This Life From Me, Knows No Better</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I</div><div style="margin:10px 0">An important thing in living<br> Is to know when to go; <br>He who does not know this<br> Has not far to go, <br>Though death may come and go<br> When you do not know.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Come, give me your hand, <br>Together shoulder and cheek to shoulder<br>We'll go, sour kana in cheeks<br>And in the mornings cherry sticks<br>To gum: the infectious chilli smiles<br>Over touch-me-not thorns, crushing snails<br>From banana leaves, past<br>Clawing outstretched arms of the bougainvillea<br>To stone the salt-bite mangoes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Tread carefully through this durian kampong<br>For the ripe season has pricked many a sole.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">  II</div><div style="margin:10px 0">la la la tham'-pong<br>Let's go running intermittent<br>To the spitting, clucking rubber fruit<br>And bamboo lashes through the silent graves, <br>Fresh sod, red mounds, knee stuck, incensing joss sticks<br>All night long burning, exhuming, expelling the spirit.<br>Let's scour, hiding behind the lowing boughs of the hibiscus<br>Skirting the school-green parapet thorny fields.<br>Let us now squawk, piercing the sultry, humid blanket<br>In the shrill wakeful tarzan tones, <br>Paddle high on.the swings<br>Naked thighs, testicles dry.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let us now vanish panting on the climbing slopes<br>Bare breasted, steaming rolling with perspiration, <br>Biting with lalang burn.<br>Let us now go and stand under the school<br>Water tap, thrashing water to and fro.<br>Then steal through the towkay's<br>Barbed compound to pluck the hairy<br>Eyeing rambutans, blood red, parang in hand, <br>And caoutchouc pungent with peeling.<br>Now scurrying through the estate glades<br>Crunching, kicking autumnal rubber leavings, <br>Kneading, rolling milky latex balls, <br>Now standing to water by the corner garden post.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">   III</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This is the land of the convectional rains<br>Which vie on the monsoon back scrubbing streets<br>This is the land at half-past four<br>The rainbow rubs the chilli face of the afternoon<br>And an evening-morning pervades the dripping, weeping<br>Rain tree, and gushing, tumbling, sewerless rain drains<br>Sub-cutaneously eddy sampan fed, muddy, fingerless rivers<br>Down with crocodile logs to the Malacca Sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This is the land of stately dipterocarp, casuarina<br>And coco-palms reeding north easterly over ancient rites<br>Of turtle bound breeding sands.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This is the land of the chignoned swaying bottoms<br>Of sarong-kebaya, sari and cheongsam.<br>The residual perch of promises<br>That threw the meek in within<br>The legs of the over-eager fledgelings.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The land since the Carnatic conquerors<br>Shovelling at the bottom of the offering mountains<br>The bounceable verdure brought to its bowers<br>The three adventurers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A land frozen in a thousand<br>Climatic, communal ages<br>Wags its primordial bushy tail to the Himalayas<br>Within a three cornered monsoon sea -<br>In reincarnate churches<br>And cracker carousels.<br>The stranglehold of boasting strutting pedigrees<br>And infidel hordes of marauding thieves, <br>Where pullulant ideals<br>Long rocketed in other climes<br>Ride flat-foot on flat tyres.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">  IV</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let us go then, hurrying by<br>Second show nights and jogget parks<br>Listening to the distant whinings of wayangs<br>Down the sidewalk frying stalls on Campbell Road<br>Cheong-Kee mee and queh teow plates<br>Sateh, rojak and kachang puteh<br>(rediffusion vigil plates) <br>Let us then dash to the Madras stalls<br>To the five cent lye chee slakes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">la la la step stepping<br>Each in his own inordinate step<br>Shuffling the terang bulan.<br>Blindly buzzes the bee<br>Criss-crossing<br>Weep, rain tree, weep<br>The grass untrampled with laughter<br>In the noonday sobering shade.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Go Cheena-becha Kling-qui Sakai</div><div style="margin:10px 0">  V</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Has it not occurred to you how I sat with you<br>dear sister, counting the chicking back of the<br>evening train by the window sill and then<br>got up to wind my way down the snake infested rail<br>to shoo shoo the cows home to brood<br>while you gee geaed the chicks to coop<br>and did we not then plan of a farm<br>a green milking farm to warm the palm<br>then turned to scratch the itch over in our minds<br>lay down on the floors, mat aside<br>our thoughts to cushion heads<br>whilst dug tapioca roots heaped the dream<br>and we lay scrapping the kernel-less<br>fiber shelled coconuts</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O Bhama, my goatless daughter kid<br>how I nursed you with the callow calves<br>those mutual moments forced in these common lives<br>and then, that day when they sold you<br>the blistering shirtless sun never flinching<br>an eye, defiant I stood caressing your creamy coat<br>and all you could say was a hopeless baaa..a..aa<br>and then, then, that day as we came over the mountains<br>two kids you led to the thorny brush, business bent<br>the eye-balling bharata natyam</div><div style="margin:10px 0">  VI</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O masters of my fading August dream<br>For should you take this life from me<br>Know you any better<br>Than when children we have joyously romped<br>Down and deep in the August river<br>Washing on the mountain tin.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now on the growing granite's precipitous face<br>In our vigilant wassail<br>Remember the children downstream playing<br>Where your own little voices are speechless lingering</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Let it not be simply said that a river flows<br> to flourish a land<br>More than that he who is high at the source<br> take heed: <br>For a river putrid in the cradle is worse<br>than the plunging flooding rain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the eclectic monsoons may have come<br>Have gathered and may have gone<br>While the senses still within torrid membranes</div><div style="margin:10px 0">thap-pong<br>  thap-poooooong<br>thap-pong</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>Glossary of Vernacular Terms</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Notes to « Who dares to take this life from me, knows no better »<br>I - line: 9 - sour kana: dried, salted seed of local fruit, taken as a ‘sweet'.<br>10 - cherry sticks: finely chopped end of the thin branch of the cherry tree, used as tooth-brush.<br>12 - touch-me-not-thorns: commonly growing thorn brush, hugging the ground, with leaves highly sensitive to the touch.<br>14 - bougainvillea: flowering tropical plant with large bright-coloured bracts covered with thorns.<br>15. - mangoes: fleshy fruit with big seed, yellowish-red skin colour, eaten either ripe or green with salt.<br>16. - durian: towering East-Indian tree bearing a large heavily-spiked oval fruit containing pulp notable for its fetid smell.<br>16. - kampong: native Malay village.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">II - line: <br>1. - la la la tham'-pong: form of ceremonious uttering employed by children when choosing sides to a game.<br>5. - joss sticks: Chinese incense sticks, of fragrant tinder mixed with clay, plentiful at a funeral.<br>7. - hibiscus: shrub cultivated as hedge or fence at schools, etc., and flower of a blood- red hue, the Malayan national flower.<br>15. - lalang: (imperata cyclindrica) aggressive weed flourishes by means of its underground runners, a sword-like posture, pricks the skin, found almost everywhere in Malaya.<br>18. - towkay: Chinese form of address for proprietor or landed gentry in Malaya.<br>20. - rambutan: amongst the finest fruits of the East, is a widely cultivated Malayan fruit, with varieties dark red in appearance and covered with hair-like growths- like a Gorgon-head.<br>20. - parang: heavy Malay sheath-knife.<br>24.- latex: sticky milky fluid of rubber plant.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">III - line: <br>7. - sampan: a small rowing-boat of Chinese origin, a common feature of Malayan rivers.<br>9. - dipterocarp: biggest and tallest tree of the Malayan jungle variety.<br>9. - casuarinas: quick-growing Australian and East-Indian tree found mostly on Malayan beaches, with jointed leafless branches resembling gigantic horse-tails.<br>13. - sarong-kebaya: Malay women's two-piece national costume.<br>- sari: Indian women's main garment of wear.<br>- cheongsam: Chinese one-piece dress with high slits up the sides of thighs.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV - line: <br>2. - jogget: modern Malay dance of Latin variety.<br>3. - wayang: Malay word for show; here referring to Chinese opera.<br>4. - Campbell Road: popular street in Kuala Lumpur, famous for Chinese food stalls, <br>open deep into the night.<br>5. - Cheong-Kee: name of famous Chinese caterer.<br>- mee, queh teow: varieties of Chinese-Malayan fried noodle dishes.<br>6. - sateh, rojak: two popular highly spiced Malay varieties of food.<br>- kachang puteh: Malay for fried ground nuts.<br>7. - rediffusion: radio station offering ceaseless music in all the vernacular for the better part of the day and night in the capital Kuala Lumpur.<br>8. - Madras stall: Chinese food and drink stalls in the capital's Chinatown.<br>9. - lye chee: popular Chinese cool sobering drink, served with the flesh of the fruit of the same name and its juice.<br>12. - terang bulan: popular lilting Malay melody, now the theme of the national anthem of the newly-formed independent Federation of Malaya.<br>15. rain tree: (enterolobium saman, mimosacene) whose Malay name is ‘Hujan-hujan', though not a native tree is now widely grown along streets and in gardens, characteristic tree of Malaya today.<br>18. - Cheena-becha - derogative reference to the Chinese.<br>- K'ling-qui: derogative reference to the Indians.<br>- Sakai: derogative reference to the Malays.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">V - line: <br>12. - tapioca: (cassava) quick-growing plant with edible tuberous roots. Staple diet of Malayans during the Second World War.<br>15. - Bhama: name of one of the spouses of Krishna, the Hindu God; here refers to an orphaned kid I raised as a pet in my childhood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI - line: <br>1. - August dream: Independence granted to the Federation of Malaya on 30th August 1957.<br>20. - thap-pong, etc.: rhythmic sound of the Malay indigenous drum in slow tempo, spaced out deliberately, and to which beat the Malays perform their national dance, the Ronggeng.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">(©: T. Wignesan - Heidelberg,1957; from Tracks of a Tramp. Kuala Lumpur-Singapore: Rayirath Publications,1961.ISBN 978-2-904428-00-5)</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=T.+Wignesan">T. Wignesan</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=523710" data-title="Who Dares To Take This Life From Me, Knows No Better de T. Wignesan" data-description="I

An important thing in living
 Is to know when to go; 
He who does not know this
 Has not far to go, 
Though death may come and go
 When you do not know.

Come, give me your hand, 
Together shoulder and cheek to shoulder
We'll go, sour kana in c..."></div>
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