Eric Valles (b. 1968)
SELECTED POEMS
Restoring a Mural in Changi Chapel¹
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” —Luke 23:34 ²
Under layers of paint,
like tar pits of memory,
the wearied arms and legs
of five half-naked POWs—
crouching in outline.
They are the dead we mourn—
who are raising Christ,
alive and golden on the cross
in the mid-afternoon sun,
as if mercy sprouts a leaf
breaking out of an ice floe,
as if hope could summon
sculpted captives
from deep marble slumber,
out of a plastered tomb wall
as a British bombardier
fights invisible monsters,
wartime nightmares
of raising blistered hands,
bony after three years of want,
of making brush bristles from hair
and mixing paint with crushed chalk.The prisoner mixes linseed oil
with salty sweat for body and gloss;
his figures’ eyes are closed to defeat,
their spirit breaking at last the bonds of war.
¹ Overcoming initial reluctance because of wartime trauma, Stanley Warren returned to Singapore’s Changi Prison thrice after World War II. He repainted his murals, rediscovered on the prison’s old infirmary walls.
² This gospel verse is written on a Crucifixion mural by Warren.
by Eric Valles
from After the Fall: dirges among ruins (2014)
