fragment from a eulogy (prepared by singapore)

[tintedclouds]

for mr lee kuan yew. this is not my best, but words will never be enough to tell you how much i am grateful for this country i live in.


father, i will be fifty in one hundred and thirty three days.
i have watched you shed tears the day my body
broke away from malaya; i have watched you toil tirelessly:
you did not father me with a loving hand, but with
a resolve made of steel and a hand clad with iron.
once i heard you promise to raise me into a metropolis
from nothing but a mudflat.
and here i am today, fifty and still going strong.
you were ninety one.

father, you cried at my birth.
but today, the world will cry for you
as you are lowered into the depths of my land.
i am the legacy you have left behind:
eighteen thousand, one hundred and twenty nine days.
the people will carve this number into their bones.
we will remember you.