Blooming Blossoms: A Collection of Poems About Life

By Hawthorn Cheu Ph.D.

This anthology is essentially dealing with tit-bits of life experiences. Life is beautiful if you intend it to be, or make it out to be. In fact, life can be as beautiful as flowers if you ignore the ugly side of race-based politics. That’s why this anthology is talking about life that blooms as beautifully as flowers: hence the title “Blooming Blossoms.” However, since life is not something permanent, just as flowers that bloom and wither, it is fleeting in moment. Let us treasure life as we live each day. Let us think as if we are going to live forever and live each day as if it is the last day of our life. As you read these poems, we wish that they make you smile as you live each day full of love and love-loaded emotion!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Aug 31, 2019
• ISBN: 9781543753417

Hawthorn Cheu Ph.D.

Hawthorn Cheu received his Masters and Ph.D degrees from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and had lectured in Anthropology and Sociology in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia from 1976 till mid-1995. From mid-1995 till 2000, he taught in the Malay Studies Department and the Southeast Asian Studies Center, National University of Singapore. He was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar-in-Residence at the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, from August 1987 to October 1988. Hawthorn Cheu, who is effectively trilingual in English, Chinese and Malay, wrote prolifically, and had contributed numerous articles in all three languages to professional and academic journals, magazines and newspapers. He had also presented numerous academic papers for discussion in local and international conferences. Alice Tan is Hawthorn Cheu’s niece who had written some 49 poems in Chinese which he had helped to translate into English. Alice is a woman with a mind of her own. She is Chinese educated but is able to communicate in reasonably good English. Though a simple housewife, she is aggressively engaged in her own varied business enterprise. She was named Contribution Ambassador for Universe QiPao Beauty Pagent in 2018. Blessed with six beautiful children, she is a very responsible mother and housewife. Many of her poems were sentimental in nature as they were mostly written when she was inspired. However, they are by no means a factual presentation of her personal life experiences. This shows her innate creativity as a poetry writer.

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Copyright © 2019 by HAWTHORN CHEU, PH.D (CORNELL).

Library of Congress Control Number:   2019912473

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5437-5340-0

                eBook            978-1-5437-5341-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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CONTENTS

Emotion

A Revisit to Kota Tinggi

An Inner Thought

Blessed Peace

Did You Know

Feeling

Heartache

Heart-Warming

Helplessness

How Would I Know

I Am Concerned about You

I Am Lost

I am Moved

I Miss You

If She Doesn’t Like You

Memory

Mindfulness

Nocturnal Music

Nostalgia

Reminiscence

Sincerity

Separation

Sorrow and Joy

Temporary Separation

The Poetry

The Secrets

The Truth

Those Days Without You

Train Station

Triumph and Disaster

Waiting

Why Let Me Know

Why Let You Know

Willingness

Wishes

With No Regrets

With Reluctance

Where Are You

When Does It End

When Will It End

Who Would Ever Know

You in My Heart

Love

Daydreams

Deep Love

Endless Love

Eternal Love

In Control

In Love

Let Me Open My Arms

Little Corner in Your Heart

Love and Destiny

Love and Hate

Love in a Distance

Love in a Hurry

Love is to Embrace Each Other

Love Is Wonderful

Matrimony

Money and Love

Mutual Affection

Mutual Love

My Fantasy

Real Affection

Real Love

Romantic Love

Stand Firm

Song of Love

Soulful Love

Sweet Silence

The Spring of Love

The Story of Love

The Wonder of Love

Thinking of Love

True Affection

True Love

The Vow of Love

What Is Love

Ethics

Cherishing

Confession

Consistency in Word and Deed

Deep Regrets

Do Not Live for Myself

Do not Talk Excessively

Encouragement

Excuse

Give Thanks

Know Yourself

My Conscience is Clear

Persistence

Promise and Excuse

Silver and Time

Thank You

The Price of Lying

The Sixth Sense

What Kind of Person

Life

A Mortal

About Life

Beautiful Sunday

Do not be Afraid

Do Not Worry

Emptiness

Flower and Grass

Foot Steps

Friendship

Have No Fear

If You Have Reached the Age of Eighty

Life and Death

Life Force

Life Partners

Life

Melody of Beauty

Opportunity

Seeking Rebirth

Success and Failure

The Banquet

Transformation

True Meaning of Life

What is Life?

When I have Money

Who Am I

Nature

Acacia Seed

Acacia Tree

Day and Night

Eastern Star

Maxwell Hill

Mother Earth Is A-Weeping

Rose, Rose, I Pity You

Sea Shells

The Snowy Clouds

Stars in My Eyes

The Caterpillar

The Hibiscus

The Smiling Moon

White Clouds

Communications

A Crossroad Story

Alice in the Wonderland

Red tongue

Seed of a Language

News from Space

Email Message

Genting Dream Cruise

MAS Flight 370

Family

Adorable Grandma

Beloved Mother

Mother is A Wonder Woman

Papa’s Bitterness

Great Mother

Little Sister

Walking in the Rain

G-Point

Cancer

Occupation

A Sex worker

My Beloved Teacher

Rubber Tapper

The Chieftain

Religion

Anonymous Painter

Divine Grace

In God I Trust

God the Painter

God’s Thumb Prints

Morning Light

Grave-Cleaning Festival

Nine Emperor Gods Research

Politics

Malaysia

National Principles of Malaysia

Whence Come the ‘Bumiputras’

PREFACE

This anthology consists of around 165 poems, originally written in English or being translated from Chinese and Malay. Most of the Malay poems were written in the sixties after Hawthorn Cheu finished the MCE (Malaysian Certificate of Education) in 1960. A greater part of the English poems were written when he settled in the United States of America, living mostly in Sartell, Minnesota and Dripping Springs, Texas. Some of the poems had been published in Poetry.com, Stars in Our hearts, World Poetry Movement, 2012; International Who’s Who in Poetry, Los Angeles, 2012; Best Poets of 2015, Eber and Wein, 2015; to name a few. Forty-nine poems were originally written in Chinese by Alice Tan.

Based on a content analysis of the anthology, some ten major themes of interest were represented, namely: emotion, love, ethics, life, nature, communication, family, occupation, religion, and politics.

Emotion represents a major component of the poems. Some 38, or 23 percent, of them bear this theme. They include: An Inner Thought, Did You Know, Feeling, Heartache, Heart-Warming, Helplessness, How Would I Know, I Am Concerned about You, I Am Moved, If She Does Not Like You, Memory, Mindfulness, Nocturnal Music, Nostalgia, Reminiscence, Sincerity, Separation, Sorrow and Joy, Temporary Separation, The Poetry, The Secrets, The Truth, Those Days without You, Train Station, Triumph and Disaster, Waiting, Why Let Me Know, Why Let You Know, Willingness, Wishes, With No Regrets, With Reluctance".

Sometimes emotion can arise due to feelings of love, hatred, anger, envy, frustration, grief, betrayal and so forth. However, the poems in this collection are mostly due to emotions of love, frustration and disappointment. They include: You in My Heart, Blessed Peace, I Am Lost, I Miss You and Where Are You. This collection portrays the reality of love, which may not necessarily be smooth-sailing all the time; there is bound to be moments of frustration and disappointment here and there as a couple go through the roller-coaster of life.

The emotion of love may differ from the love that gives rise to emotion. A person can love another with or without emotion. A husband who loves his wife with emotion, for example, rarely beats her or ill-treats her. Contrarily, a husband who loves his wife without emotion can treat her like a punch bag and a wife-batterer can easily end his marriage. Even if they do not end up in divorce, due to certain inexplicable or inevitable circumstances, the marriage may not be a happy one. Examples of love with emotion are: A Revisit to Kota Tinggi, Mutual Affection, Mutual Love, Those Days without You, When Does It End, When Will It End, and Who Would Ever Know.

Emotion is closely related to love, as love is very much an emotional state of mind one attaches to another. Coincidentally, or otherwise, love happens to be the second theme represented in this anthology. Some 35 poems or 21 percent bear this theme. They include: Daydreams, Deep Love, Endless Love, Eternal Love, In Control, In Love, Let Me Open My Arms, Little Corner in Your Heart, Love and Destiny, Love and Hate, Love in a Distance, Love in a Hurry, Love Is to Embrace Each Other, Love Is Wonderful, Matrimony, Money and Love, Mutual Affection, Mutual Love, My Fantasy, Real Affection, Real Love, Romantic Love, Song of Love, Soulful Love, Stand Firm, Sweet Silence, The Charm of Love, The Spring of Love, The Story of Love, The Wonder of Love, The Vow of Love, Thinking of Love, True Affection, True Love, and What Is Love.

Another component of poems that involve feelings of emotion bears the theme of ethics. Eleven or 11 percent of them share the same theme. Ethics usually forms part of the belief or philosophical system of a particular culture. Topics bearing the theme of ethics involving emotion include: Cherishing, Confession, Consistency in Word and Deed, Deep Regrets, Do Not Live for Myself, Do Not Talk Excessively, Encouragement, Excuse, Give Thanks, Know Yourself, My Conscience Is Clear, Persistence, Promise and Excuse, Silver and Time, Thank You, The Price of Lying, The Sixth Sense and What Kind of Person.

The fourth component of this anthology deals with life. We all know, emotion, love and ethics form an important part of life. Some 25 poems, or 15 percent, of this anthology have to do with life. They include: A Mortal, About Life, Beautiful Sunday, Do Not be Afraid, Do Not Worry, Emptiness, Flower and Grass, Foot Steps, Friendship, Have No Fear, If You’ve Lived up to Eighty, Life and Death, Life Force, Life Partners, Life, Melody of Beauty, Opportunity, Seeking Rebirth, Success and Failure, The Banquet, Transformation, True Meaning of Life, What Is Life, When I Have Money, and Who Am I.

The fifth component of poems relates to nature. There are fifteen poems in this component. They represent about nine percent of the anthology. Except for a few poems, which reflect purely on nature, such as: Day and Night, which talks about flower and bird; Eastern Star which has to do with culture; and Maxwell Hill which is one of the centers of tourist attraction in Peninsular Malaysia. It is interesting to note that almost all of the remaining poems under this theme are figurative in nature. For instance, Acacia Seed and Acacia Tree reflect the needs to protect the planet and prevent the extinction of certain species of flora and fauna. Mother Earth Is A-Weeping laments the destruction of environment through ad hoc lumbering and its implications. This poem portrays how human nature runs counter with Mother Nature. Rose, Rose, I Pity You, is a figurative critique of conceited young beauties in our life circle. Sea Shells and The Caterpillar, respectively, attempt to express how love is lost and found and how the