I really liked the poem “Singapore” written by Mary Oliver as it really touched my heart as the way it has been written. In the poem, what was particularly interesting was that Oliver’s perception kept changing as she kept thinking about the woman whom she saw washing the ashtray of toilet at airport with a blue rag. At times she is disturbed to see what she is seeing and the next moment her disturbance turns into a beautiful picture of nature in her mind. It looks like that those images come to her automatically and she wasn’t comparing the real life to her imagination. The face and personality of that cleaning woman kept giving her image of Mother Nature. The poet has used metaphors and simile in order to show similarity of her observation and imagination.
At first she was surprised and had no idea when she was a woman washing the ashtray in women’s restroom and then all of a sudden the images of waterfalls, birds and river came across his mind. It was as if she was looking at the image of Mother Nature and her care for the living beings. Then again she was speechless as soon as that woman turned around and smiled at her and that led to the series of thinking objects running in her mind. She was not sure how to respond to the smile of that woman and the again all of a sudden an image ran in front of her mind which compared her hair to the wings of a bird and her movements to a river. Once again an image of Mother Nature came in front of her eyes.
Oliver suddenly realized that she woman loves her life as the same way Mother Nature cares for everyone without any complaints. Her actions such as folding and unfolding of her cleaning cloth and her smile that she gave to that woman kept reminding Oliver of the Mother Nature. It was as if mother nature and its beauty was picturized in the form of that cleaning lady.
Perhaps the base of this poem is to accept the reality of life in a positive manner. Sometimes reality is not exactly what our eyes show to us or makes us to belief. Life is full of different colors which also include the colors of black and white. It all depends how we view that. Perhaps the poet is from a rich background and that’s why she felt pity at the life of that cleaning lady but when she saw that the lady is actually happy with her life and is not complaining with it, the poet’s negativity of thoughts turned into a positive image of Mother Nature. Life is not something that we rich or middle class people think and happiness is not exactly what we understand subjectively. It all depends on how an individual looks at his life and define his/her own happiness. Perhaps that ‘s the message the poet wants to reveal to the readers.
