The Fullest Consciousness
by Cyril Wong

Did we know what we should have always known

and forgot, anyway, wilfully or semi-consciously 

in our unending year of capricious rain and flame? 

We shrink away through the recycling of a hundred

excuses about survival, the business of family 

and work, our all-consuming politics. An Angsana

seed in my hand becomes our nearly dehiscent planet 

desiccated even after braving tides of air to land 

on water evaporating at my feet after lukewarm rain. 

When might we save us from ourselves in the fullest

consciousness of what happens if we fail?