the possibility of beauty

i just read some truly beautiful poetry today -- written by a fellow Singaporean who's now an undergrad at Oxford. Theophi Kwek has just won the UK's Jane Martin Poetry Prize with a group of 4 gorgeously breathtaking poems. Lieber Gott im Himmel! It's been so long since the last time i read poetry that leaves me with such a hushed sense of awe.
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Theophi's poems left me smiling from eye to eye -- that kind of radiant, beatific smile that goes all the way from your lips to your cheekbones to the corners of your eyes then up to sides of your forehead where your skin meets your hair. The kind of smile that makes your entire face and being feel light, in both senses of the word. It feels like so long since i've smiled like that.
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The possibility of beauty. i so needed to see that today. i really hope Theophi keeps writing and keeps growing, as a poet, as a Christian, as a human being. And i hope it won't be too long before his next collection is ready for publication. i think i'll be needing to read his work, as soon as i possibly can.
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Here are 3 of the poems: i would have put them all up, but perhaps that would be taking things too far. You can check out all 4 on the prize website.
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North
Oslo, Norway
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“And there we all were, as invisible as you could wish to see.” 
– C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
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Out on the jetty, with cloud closing in 
we watched Oslo flicker, then resolve 
under a skene of night, more visibly:
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skies’ black cliffs like a cast of mind, 
gulls vectoring out in hurried sleight 
above cruise-ships, cold in harbour’s
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thrall. Traffic’s bright skirl laid distal 
to the fjord, and time itself an island, 
at bay. In another city that we loved,
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snow fell as rain. Windows with their 
Christmas lights marked the occasion; 
pedestrians, huddling through doors,
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birled leaves into tiny storms. There 
no mountains made the skyline small, 
and we – who were lucky – grew up
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with stories from other places, far
in the fog-filled north, where willows 
wept, winds whirled, and life seemed
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larger for all its kennings. Having come 
late in the falling dark we sat, children 
again, arriving at what had always been. 
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Magdalene
Jerusalem
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For days afterwards late Spring took its course. 
A north wind came through the window-slats 
and plovers returned to walk on water.
In the shorter shadows the city’s groves
filled out with leaves, promised black olives
as clouds wept and bowed over the temple.
We broke bread on the roof. Said fumbling prayers 
to keep the hours, returned to usual squares, 
gathered each evening in our knit circles.
It was all we could do to live, despite
the wanting the waiting or the altered light
of that once-opened sky, blue as a miracle.
In time we grew acquainted with the weight
of wonder, thought less of the mystery of things, 
thought them more believable. Some went back
to Galilee. Others made for other seas,
nets and fresh tackle. I watched them leave,
then stood alone in the tug of wild hyssop
at the city’s sleeve, strong as love or the facts
of being known: brief night, the lightness of stone. 
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First snow
Charlbury, Oxfordshire
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From a window. Last night’s fall in fresh veins 
fills the wrinkled earth, tracks without trains,
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a fifth hedge across the square fields. Light sown 
as haw, thawed streams like cracks in the bone.
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Beneath the treeline a fisherman’s cord 
corrals the low hills, spills poured silver
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into seams, braided wood. Its frayed edges 
spread earthward, soft as skift, the smell of sage.
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Doors fling open at each scheduled station. 
What begins as draught – a waiting engine
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steeped in frost, footsteps quickening
along a platform’s length – stirs the cabin
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to praise, or something like praise: a ratchet 
in the heart, cold felt as joy, for cloth
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which covers the wounded scarp, the hurtling thrush, 
spent farms. That through a window comes
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like a thief to bless a driver’s plainsong,
men in their warmed cars. The right and the wronged. 
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(Theophilus Kwek)
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