Lim Xin Yi 2D'07

Nature’s Orchard Road

Walking round’ nature’s orchard road,

Under a vast canopy of trees

Where the path of men and nature meet

Footprints, lilies, orchids and garden tools

The harmonious music of nature thrives



Walking round’ nature’s orchard road

As much as the alluring sight beholds

It is strictly reserved for viewing pleasure

Those precious beauties can’t be priced tag glued

For buying away the priceless experience is just too cruel

Epilogue:

What first sparked me to write this poem was the sight of the ‘orchard road’ sign in botanical gardens. (I do not have a photo of the 'orchard road' sign) I felt that walking down the paths of botanical gardens was like window shopping in orchard road. However instead of enjoying life in one of Singapore most crowded and vibrant streets, we are instead enjoying the smoothing and peaceful images that nature brings to us. While walking, I also saw many combinations of both man and nature. In today’s society, it is very hard to find combinations of both men and nature and not to say places of nature that are untouched by men. However, I feel that the way nature and men coexist in the botanical gardens a very consoling sight. This is because in society today, there is no way that men can survive without technology even if he/she is not willingly. However just making the effort of letting nature coexist with men is really enough to let ourselves to be more in touch with nature and really the minimal that we can do to try and preserve mother nature as we improve our standards of living. Lastly, the second stanza of the poem is talking about nature being priceless. This is also a difference I felt between orchard road and botanical gardens. We cannot buy nature out of botanical gardens like how we buy things from orchard road. Nature is far too precious to be bought and no matter how small each member of is, they each worth what money cannot buy. For example, once nature is destroyed, no matter how much money we are willingly to pay to buy it back will be of no use already.