The Canemaker, How Ironic, How Apt, How Fated.

16. Make me a Cane
Canemaker, Canemaker, make me a cane,
Make me a cane true and strong
As stout and straight as the day is long,

By sunlight or moonlight
Shall I carry your cane,
In morning and twilight
Through hail, snow and rain.

Never to be parted shall we ever be,
The polish of your wood staying bright unstained,
Often shall people see me, smile and exclaim,
"Yea, there walks the boy and his Canemaker’s cane!"

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From chapter entitled 'The Red Baron', finished 27th July 2005

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Around 2004 - 2005, I picked up a hobby of making walking-sticks. And despite the poem, if you ever ask for one of my walking-sticks, I cannot guarantee the quality or strength but rest assured the shape shall always be bent and crooked. Like me, it is perfectly balanced, but in a twisty-turny sorta way. How Ironic.

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The black walking-stick in the picture was made in 2005(I think). The height is tall enough to be a shepherd's staff. It is not in fact finished yet. While waiting for me to attend to it again, there it must patiently stand, in the company of Mika's luciferian pitchfork and my dad's canes. Three generations in an umbrella stand. How Apt.

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It's the end of a long-working day here in my office. I am a tired but contented sinner, safe in the present, graced by the prayers of my ancestors in the past, and the yet-to-be recited prayers of my descendants as they huddle over my grave, sometime in the far-near future. As we all are. How Fated.

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Be good, sunshine.

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Pax Taufiqa.

Post Script - Really, I cannot be asking you to be good. Be however you want to be, good or bad, naughty or kindly, wicked or saintly. Whatever we do, and however good or bad we are living our lives, we are really just a ripple in the ocean, and a link between the past and the future. I cannot fathom how fortunate I have been in this life, to be given a caring family and wonderful friends. That is why, at the back of my head, I am always thinking, "Someone somewhere in the past or future, must have done something really wonderful and I am only riding on their karmic blessings". As we all are, I guess. So if we are good, we are only reflecting a little sunshine from their goodness. Drinking blessings from a stream that is passing by our threshold only for this moment. It was somewhere else yesterday, and tomorrow it will flow pass us like time. Talking about which, its almost 1am. There is no sunshine outside, but writing and sharing this with you, sunshine, makes it all good, even beneath the sleeping sky. Salams and take care.