Below are the winning entries in the Senior Category of the Wish Poetry Contest 2021. All poems are copied and pasted in their original states.
First Prize – “sidereal growth”
i do not hold the answers to the universe.
dark matter matters not to me, instead,
what matters is the solid hand in mine,
the liquid gold of eyes under sunlight,
the warm air of starlight laughter.
matter is never created or destroyed.
we all have to start somewhere.
we all leave a piece of heart in the earth;
a sprouted seed to return to even as
your feet leave the ground;
the sky unfurls sea-blue ocean-deep above you.
the ground opens glass-green hands to catch you.
the seasons pass, the tape winding and rewinding;
close your eyes as we speed it up,
your branches bursting into bloom straining
like fingers reaching upwards, outwards, into the sky,
how many possibilities does this diagram show?
sweethearts bear sweet fruit and birds come home to roost
and words burst on my tongue, sweet like lemon pips,
every mouthful five languages of love.
does it matter that i cannot see the forest for the trees
even while looking through the mirror?
i have cast my hopes like dice,
tossing them onto the tails of dying comets
i have planted dreams like seeds,
burying them between the roots of myself.
someday, when the time is right,
birds will sprout from the soil like stars.
Wong Yik Ching Ivy (age 16) | St. Paul’s Co-educational College
Second Prize – “Wish”
A dying star reflected
Off a well of tarnished coins.
Yet the boy does not open his eyes
Nor unclasps his hands.
He remembers his mother with
A scarf for hair, voice breathy
There is light in the end. Then why
Have I always been surrounded by brightness
From the water, all along?
Among other things
I think a wish is magical
Like the million broken shards of night.
Sienna Ho (age 16) | St. Paul’s Convent School
Third Prize – “I WATCHED YOU CAST AWAY THE WIND AS DAY BROKE AND PEACE BECAME A WORD I FINALLY KNEW”
By your side, I rose
to the sound of fading monsoon storms,
the shadowed waning of
moon-stained fever dreams.
[Last night, the wind beat its head on every windowpane,
inflicted with hysteria, full of a bitterness that billowed with grief.
Now, through the curtains, sunlight adorns the room
in half-toned grace, the dawn composing a rhapsody.]
Next to me, you murmured a prayer in the early glow,
sighing soft, scything happiness into the air,
blossoms of effervescent warmth forming starbursts
through the sharp morning breeze, your voice merging into light.
[The sound was softer than any spring song, soothing
the storm-streaked sky. And in the evening,
the rain spilling from the clouds carried only
a rib-splitting tenderness—]
Samantha Ng (age 16) | West Island School