Carousel in the Sky

Carousel in the Sky

I have not written a poem for ages. I think the last one I wrote was something called "The Twenty-Third Song", written on my 23rd birthday. I vaguely remember that it was a rather melancholy piece.

These days I struggle to recall why I was so moody then. With age, I have learnt to see both happiness and sadness with equanimity-- to be skillful in surfing cautiously over the crests and troughs of life's vicissitudes.

I cannot recollect the entire poem, though my juvenilia was published in one of the local tabloids--now thankfully buried under the sands of time. But I can remember one particular phrase--probably not a very original one--which I used: "carousel in the sky". I think the line went something like this: "...and I marvel at the carousel in the sky"

I remember why I wrote that line. Like Citizen Kane's "rosebud", my carousel in the sky was a symbol of lost innocence. On my three-and-twentieth year, I recalled the pastoral sights of my childhood: that daily gathering of birds, circling above me like some aerial fun-fair of the heavens--my carousel in the sky.

Yes, I can see those evenings of my childhood: the sun is going down and the air is cool; the rubber trees heave under the lilting breeze and the crimson sky is filled with the chatter of these soaring birds. I do not know why there were so many of these creatures in my hometown but they were there every evening, bustling and brimming in the air with their peculiar merriment.

As I child, I stood outside my house, dwarfed by those rubber trees, in that tropical estate which was a citadel of birds. I was small and confined, they were free and frivolous. And I had wished to be like a St Francis of Assisi, to have these frolicsome creatures settle on my shoulders, whispering tales of their far-flung adventures.

I am older now and not so susceptible to moodiness. But sometimes, trudging quietly home from work in Jakarta, I would look up at the sky, grey and dense with its profusion of fumes, and yearn to ride that forgotten carousel of bygone days.