Singapore-based poet and academic Wallace Fong proclaims the unity of all things in his simple mantra-like “I Am”. In “I Am” Wallace doesn’t aim to distinguish humanity from the natural world, but instead weaves humanity among the very textures of nature’s varied tapestry. “We tend to see nature as something external to us. This is an illusion. We are part of the community of life, the web of relationships with each other and with the environment, from gardens in our home to entire rain forests. We are not spectators of this world, much less callous taskmasters bent on subduing nature,” Wallace told The Dewdrop. “Our ethic must be one of belonging, made more urgent by our wanton disregard for the nature’s generosity to the Earth. As this poem alludes, we are and always will be be part of nature’s songs. It is a shared music,” he concluded.
I Am
I am landscape.
I am weather.
I am sunlight.
I am rain.
I am the flower
I am the seed.
I am the desert beetle.
I am the fox.
I am the stream that
winds into a river.
I am the river
that meets the sea.
I am the tides
drawn by the moon.
I am the rainbow
wrested by a storm.
I am many. I am
one among many.
Wallace Fong
Wallace Fong is a blogger and writer based in Singapore. He holds a PhD in economics and has taught the subject for over thirty years in the National University of Singapore. After retiring from academia in 2018, he started reading and writing poetry, with special interest in Japanese haiku, Chinese classical poetry and Western poetry with nature and the spiritual life as themes.