Grace Chia
Musing on the Merlion Myth
Musing on the Merlion Myth
Good thing you grew
fins and a fishtail
King of the Jungle
there are no more jungles left
for you to prowl.
To feed, you evolve, adapt,
become mutant myth;
you've gone beyond the habitat
of plush thickets and palms
in search of fish food
thousands in score;
on land your forests have morphed
into bricks and concrete
tall as the sky and flat as paper.
Frozen in time yet spouting
the water of life
a nation's dreams made you a myth;
a nation's fears turned you to stone.
I wish to believe in you.
I wish my daughters' daughters
a century from hence would listen to tales of the lionfish
that no one has ever seen.
And in time, you will
emerge from your depths
a vision to behold
roaring into the future
ferocious, strong, slipping into
a collective's unconsciousness.