lionheart by Amanda Chong

You came out of the sea,
skin dappled scales of sunlight;
Riding crests, waves of fish in your fists.
Washed up, your gills snapped shut.
Water whipped the first breath of your lungs,
Your lips’ bud teased by morning mists.

You conquered the shore, its ivory coast.
Your legs still rocked with the memory of waves.
Sinews of sand ran across your back-
Rising runes of your oceanic origins.
Your heart thumped- an animal skin drum
heralding the coming of a prince.

In the jungle, amid rasping branches,
trees loosened their shadows to shroud you.
The prince beheld you then, a golden sheen.
Your eyes, two flickers; emerald blaze
You settled back on fluent haunches;
The squall of a beast. your roar, your call.

In crackling boats, seeds arrived, wind-blown,
You summoned their colours to the palm
of your hand, folded them snugly into loam,
watched saplings swaddled in green,
as they sunk roots, spawned shade,
and embraced the land that embraced them.

Centuries, by the sea’s pulmonary,
a vein throbbing humming bumboats –
your trees rise as skyscrapers.
Their ankles lost in swilling water,
as they heave themselves higher
above the mirrored surface.

Remember your self: your raw lion heart,
Each beat a stony echo that washes
through ribbed vaults of buildings.

Remember your keris, iron lightning
ripping through tentacles of waves,
double-edged, curved to a point-

flung high and caught unsheathed, scattering
five stars in the red tapestry of your sky.

Summary and Analysis

The subject of the poem, ‘you’, is the Merlion statute, which stands in this work as a national symbol of Singapore.

First stanza

The first stanza describes the Merlion at the dawn of the creation of Singapore, imbuing the creature with a mythical dimension, as the imagery of it revealing itself from the sea, riding on waves is in line with the behaviour of Greek gods and mythical legends. The image here is a powerful one, as not only is the Merlion portrayed to be mythical, it is at the same time true to its nature as half-fish, half-lion as it is clutching fish in its fists whilst adapting from using gills to using its lungs instead as it approaches land. Chong cleverly conveys the essence of the Merlion here in the same way that all powerful deities are portrayed – mythical, ethereal yet concrete and present in the flesh simultaneously.

The imagery of the Merlion and its appearance on the sea in this stanza is vivid because alliteration of ‘w’ sounds over three lines in the stanza emulates in audio form the physical movement of rising and falling of sea waves, and the sibilance of ‘snapped shut’ gives a sense of the efficiency and rapid adaptation of the Merlion towards its imminent move from the sea to the land. The consistent mixing of ‘w’ and ‘s’ sounds throughout the stanza also evokes, on the plane of the sounds of the words, a sense of the duality of the nature of the Merlion. A gentle introduction to the vast potential of Singapore at the dawn of its creation is captured in the phrase ‘morning mists’, as the dawn of Singapore is compared to the dawn of a new day. All the excitement and possibilities inherent in the idea of a new day is projected onto the idea of the young, new nation of Singapore in this stanza.

Second stanza

The second stanza is about the Merlion’s conquer of the land mass of Singapore and again, the figure of the Merlion is imbued with a mythical dimension. It ‘conquers’ the land of Singapore, like a victorious human army captain, but it also embodies history in its existence, the way only a creature with a mythical dimension could. It lives with the ‘memory of waves’ (ie. memories of where it came from, ‘its oceanic origins’). Describing this origin as inscribed in ‘runes’ gives the creature, or Singapore, a sense of rich and deep history, as runes are usually associated with mysterious, unreadable symbols of writing from ancient times. ‘Your heart thumped’ corresponds to the ‘morning mists’ from the previous stanza, because it evokes the imagery of a heart pumping strongly because of adrenaline, of excitement at the possibilities of the future. ‘animal skin drum/ heralding the coming of a prince’ brings out the juxtaposition of the primal and the royal, as if Singapore was a mix of raw power and regality at the beginning of its creation.

Third stanza

The third stanza is about the land of Singapore embracing the Merlion and softens the image of the Merlion as the forceful ‘conqueror’ of the land. The trees move protectively and welcoming around the Merlion, and the Merlion makes a regal, powerful presence on the land. Its eyes are emerald blazes, it is secure in its own sense of presence enough to ‘settle back’ on its ‘haunches’, and it is comfortable enough in its surroundings to ‘roar’, to call out.

Fourth stanza

This stanza is about the way the Merlion facilitates the beginning of life on the land of Singapore. The overall impression is that Singapore began with the birth of a wild jungle – seeds are ‘wind-blown’ and arrives in ‘crackling boats’, bringing to mind boats made out of dried natural plants or material which would ‘crackle’ as the boat moved. ‘swaddled’ and ‘spawned’ are interesting choices of verbs, bringing to mind the imagery of coddled children and the numerous eggs of frog spawn. It is as if the life in the seeds are precious and loved like human babies are, yet at the same time, they are uncontrollably abundant, numerous as frog spawn. Reciprocity and harmony of land and life (symbolized or represented by the seeds) is conveyed in the repetition of the verb ’embraced’ in the last line of the stanza.

Fifth stanza

The fifth stanza describes the growth of life on Singapore, after the sowing of seeds in the previous stanza. The strong life of the nation is conveyed by the comparison of the sea as a ‘vein’ that is ‘throbbing’, in other words, blood is flowing with powerful beats from the heart of the nation, in the form of crowds of Singapore’s signature ‘bumboats’ moving down the river. The transformation of Singapore from a land of jungle and trees into its modern picture of skyscrapers is smoothly captured in the line ‘your trees rise as skyscrapers’. A subtle but powerful image that enhances the beauty and magnificence of the skyscrapers in Singapore is captured in the description of ‘above the mirrored surface’. If you think of those paintings of a city’s skyline that is reflected on the surface of a sea, each building has two presences – one is its presence on land, the other is its reflection in the water, and on the painting (as well as real life), the reflection is glued at the bottom to the real building on land, and so the building is twice as long, has twice the presence it has, if it is ‘above a mirrored surface’.

Final three stanzas

Perhaps a reminder to the modern, fast-moving ubran metropolitan to remember its grand origins and rich historical roots. (But was Singapore actually steeped in such grand origins, or do we have a Gatsby situation of self-mythologizing a little bit too much here?!)

Personal Opinion 

While this poem is a fair go at communicating the creation of nation through the national symbol of a mythical creature, it reeks of the absorption of the white-washed version of history that the West has propagated.

The specificity to Singaporean culture and history seems to be very limited in this version of Singapore’s mythical origins as a nation. The impression it leaves with me is more of a watered down version of the mythical origins of a city in Europe.

The poem is peppered with words that 1. have a very distinct history/association of meanings in Western culture, 2. are not used in a way that endows them with a new identity, as would befit a poem about a city of such multi ethnic and cultural mix, now or back in history.

Just a few of these are ‘dappled’, ‘washed up’, ‘ivory coast’, ‘sinews of sand’, ‘heralding’, ‘squall of a beast’, ‘crackling boats’, ‘centuries’, ‘ribbed vaults’.

‘ribbed vaults’ particularly bugs me – this is a classic feature of Gothic architecture. Don’t tell me that Singapore absorbed the styles of Gothic architecture from the West back in the 16th to 18th century. If it doesn’t apply to Singapore, then don’t use it.

Trying to hold up the figure of the Merlion as the national symbol and myth of Singapore is also too much. But I will concede that the attempt has good moments – in its clever communication of the Merlion’s nature of half fish half lion in the first stanza.

The other moments of originality worth applauding in the poem is the incorporation of ‘bumboats’ in the imagery of the Singaporean sea, and the smooth linking of the ‘keris’ flung high and the sight of the Singaporean flag, of a red background and yellow stars on it.