A visual representation of "Vanilla in the stars" by Agnes Lam
WONG Ling Wai
YCH Wong Wha San Secondary School
The poem remade is ‘Vanilla in the stars’ by Agnes Lam.
Compelled by the romantic and dreamy atmosphere,
I had the impulse to transform the words into a piece of artwork.
In the poem, the writer uses stars to bring out the connection between people and their destiny –
their attempt to reunite with each other after reincarnations.
In my artwork, I used an hourglass to symbolise reincarnation.
Albeit the set time limit, the hourglass can be turned over and each time it is turned,
it signifies a new lease of life. Different people, children, the youth and the elderly,
all step on different parts of the cogwheel of a timepiece to express their encounters with one another in a lifetime.
The scene created in the hourglass is to imitate how stars,
which were once a small planet, atomised into a symphony of light
and then turned into universe stardust scattered on the earth to nourish nature
and all sorts of relationships.
We use DNA to pass on all the things seen and heard to the next generations, to infinity and beyond.
Vanilla in the stars
When I was a child,
I used to gaze at the stars above
our garden of roses, jasmine and lingzhi by the sea,
wondering how far away they really were,
whether they were shining still at the source
by the time their light reached me …
I was told that everyone was born with a star
which glowed or dimmed with the fortunes of each.
I also heard people destined to be close
were at first fragments of the same star
and from birth went searching for each other.
Such parting, seeking, reuniting might take
three lifetimes with centuries in between.
I had thought all these were but myths …
Now decades later, I read about the life of stars,
how their cores burn for ten billion years,
how towards the end, just before oblivion,
they atomize into nebulae of fragile brilliance –
ultra violet, infra red, luminous white, neon green or blue,
astronomical butterflies of gaseous light
afloat in a last waltz choreographed by relativity,
scattering their heated ashes into the void of the universe …
Some of this cosmic dust falls onto our little earth
carrying hydrocarbon compounds, organic matter
able to mutate into plant and animal life,
a spectrum of elemental fragrances …
Perhaps on the dust emanating from one ancient star
were borne the first molecules of a pandan leaf,
a sprig of mint or basil, a vanilla pod, a vine tomato,
a morning frangipani, an evening rose, a lily of the night …
Perhaps our parents or grandparents or ancestors further back
strolling through a garden or a field had breathed in the scents
effusing from some of these plants born of the same star
and passed them on as DNA in the genes of which we were made …
Could that be why, on our early encounters, we already sensed
in each other a whiff of something familiar, why, when we are near,
there is in the air some spark which seems to have always been there,
prompting us to connect our pasts, share our stories even as they evolve …
… till the day when we too burn away into dust
and the aromas of our essence dissipate
into the same kaleidoscope of ether light
to be drawn into solar space by astral winds …
… perhaps to make vanilla in a star to be
before the next lifetime of three?
Agnes Lam
“Vanilla in the Stars” was first published as:
Lam, Agnes. (2009). Vanilla in the stars. In P. Amato & M. J. Salfran (Eds.), Nosside 2008: XXIVth Poetry Prize anthology (pp. 89-92). Reggio Calabria: Centro Studi Bosio, Italy. (Published in English and Italian.)