Elegy for Bidadari

SINGAPORE--I come here to the cemetery not to mourn. I jog! Only on the weekends can I jog in peace; only then can the residents rest in peace. For it's exhumation time, time to raise up new HDB (Housing Development Board) flats. Everything must go!

I am not the only one here today. I gasp at the bright blue back of a kingfisher in flight, the red head of a lizard that, I swear, rose up on its hind legs to run across the road, the fluffy yellow underbelly of a squirrel flicking its tail in one of the many trees shading the monuments.

They have no voice, these Singaporeans--the ones in the grave, the ones with wings or leaves or tails. And what's worse, like Singaporean retirees, they have no obvious economic benefit. So they must make way for young humans heeding the urgency of the ageing population "crisis" declared by the country's leaders. If you build it, they will come. Everything else must go.

I fly out of Singapore in three days. When I return, I will no longer come to this place to jog. I will mourn.