The Long Day Wanes

It's night in monsoon Singapore. The streets are redolent with damp mineral scents, and all around is the faint dripping of old rain. It has been a very long day for me, fatiguing to the heart and mind. It is also the time of year when colleagues depart, when the shifting exigencies of service demand movement, change, renewal.

=====

Saturday morning she came
She had boxed her years away -
Several packages, her name
Quietly upon them lay.

They carted her life downstairs;
She had always been modest,
She never gave herself airs,
Always had given her best.

Like caterpillars work hard
She had worked lovingly here;
Now her cocoon has been made
She will shortly disappear.

Only to reappear; for
Butterflies sometimes return,
Gracing trees they knew once more
With caterpillar concern.