Margaret Leong (1921-2012)
FEATURES / DEAD POETS’ SOCIETY
Written by Pamela Seong Koon
Dated 30 Aug 2023
Margaret Leong lived a life of assimilation. How much can you truly feel like you are part of a place if you have not lived there for most of your life? I applaud Leong’s efforts to try, evident in her observant poems of Singapore’s natural environment, peppered with kelongs and the housing stilts that support them.
The collection Rivers of Senang captures the environment around everyday merchant trade and the nights suspended above kampung roofs. I chose the poem “Tonight the Moon is Locked” to respond to as I enjoyed the depiction of the moon as a backdrop for the still nights in Singapore. The moon is a classic feature in poetry: as onlooker, as bright light, as conductor of tides. The poem evokes the surging and ebbing of waves through the ABCB form and the descriptions of kampung seaside. Leong has painted what it was like to sit on a ledge and moonbathe in 1960s Singapore, with the sound of water crashing against unmanned junks.
The composition of moon and tides reminded me of Park Chan-wook’s film Decision To Leave (2022); both pieces of work showcase strong water/moon motifs to illustrate a sense of stillness between bustle and chaos. For “Tonight the Moon is Locked”, it is the merchant trade that wakes in the morning; for Decision to Leave, it is the thrilling sequence of events that both precede and succeed the appearance of the moon.
For myself, the moon provides a refuge from daytime, and I would like to think that Leong felt the same back then.
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The Moon’s Limbo
after Decision To Leave (2022, dir. Park Chan-wook)
To say goodnight is to hope for the sun tomorrow.
If the sun is a new horizon, the moon is a pendulum sweeping across the shore.
A tide can only form before crumbling against precipice.
I search for you and your eyes reflect the pull of water.
We watch the fullness of breath and its distance after dissipating.
You push the dark from your face, tucking it behind an ear.
If the wise love the sea, and the virtuous, mountains;
lovers know to jar the moonlight and wait.
To say goodnight is to depart in opposite directions.
