What Happens When We Sing by Bliss Cua Lim
What Happens When We Sing
Bliss Cua Lim(After Bibi)
My girlfriend said,
you cannot produce a sound you haven’t heard,
by way of explaining what happens when we sing,
and alluding to a man in a Chinese opera
who had effortlessly freed a note astounding to her ears.Her words had weight and sank deep in me.
Those who do not fear to revel, saying,
whatever the price or loss I’ve later to pay
is worth this moment,
have not lived that logic and been seared.
The delicate palpitations of the desirous spirit,
that waits upon a voice on the phone,
a step at the door,
a rustling of note paper,
are destined almost always to a cheating of those hopes.Having desired and died, we ask,
do we need to need? Why?I have heard a noise like the breaking of pavement
when a terrible sob is muffled towards morning.
Some women are made for love,
but remembrance of such wailing can unmake them.Everyday he grows lovelier for the love of me.
Shall I nurture, knowing the body I cradle can turn?
A sound like that can make you repeat relentless questions,
draw in your hands and count protestations.
A love like that can ruin you for love.
MARGINALIA
My throat hurts. I have a raging fever again that needs to be purged. Perhaps a poem from an overdue library book can calm my ills.
ABOUT BLISS CUA LIM
Bliss Cua Lim is Professor at the Cinema Studies Institute. She is the author of Translating Time: Cinema, the Fantastic and Temporal Critique (2009) and a member of the Editorial Collective of Camera Obscura and the Advisory Board of Plaridel: A Philippine Journal of Communication. Her recent book, The Archival Afterlives of Philippine Cinema (Duke University Press, 2024), analyzes the crisis-ridden history of film archiving in the Philippines. Her recent courses include Queer… (more)
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ENDNOTES
- Explore other works in pursuit of: desire • love • vulnerability • Or browse the index
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What happens, when we lose our ability to sing?
How will it be, when my song leaves me?
And will he be there when I am silent?
Will he remember how we sang together?
How long will those memories sustain him,?
As he alone cares for his silent bird.
And one day ends my silence with a cruel pillow.