Again, The Day

To Adelina Asmawi, for such grace in friendship.

Darn! Today has arrived again.
A day, twenty-one and back,
Some child in the nearby hospital
Cried to the world, `Hello!'

Eighteen years later she walks
Into lives of (un)lucky people,
Bringing bouquets of roses for all:
The strong and weak, the big and small.

(I myself had a share of her dawns,
Lulled by her scent and cut by her thorns!
Yet who have not thorns in their gardens,
So why play God and be her judge?)

Take and cherish the beauty with all pardons:
None is total, in the least a smudge.
Accept this thorny rose with glee and love,
As today is the twenty first up her trove.

Originally written in 1996

This poem was written as a birthday parody to Adelina Asmawi, or Labyrinth, on her 21st birthday. Here are some explanation on the stanzas:

The first stanza is free flow - the lines do not rhyme, the rhythm ecstatic. It carries my message to Adelina - "You don't know poetry!".

"Eighteen years later" does not refer to her age when this poem was written, but to our first meeting in University Malaya, Kuala Lumpur. The unlucky souls she treaded on included me, as well as many of my friends, with her intoxicating charm which we knew not was honey or poison.

And therefore, I did not want to judge her. She might be a real poison, but then again, she might be honey which turned into poison because of me. Only God knows.

However, it seems that I decided to become more positive of Adelina Asmawi by accepting her faults and only cherish her strong points. Admittedly, even after all this years, though our idea of greeting each other is to throw insults to one another, Adelina Asmawi, all in all, is indeed one of the best friendships I have ever had (did you notice that I refer to her as a "friendship", instead of a "friend"?)