Among Winter Cranes
“Even as birds that winter on the Nile…” (Purgatorio XXIV.64)
The Quarterly of the Christian Poetics Initiative | Vol. 9 Issue 2 | Spring 2026
Reflection on “Friendship” and “Fidelity”
by Jonathan Chan
Jonathan Chan is the managing editor of poetry.sg. He is a writer, editor, translator of poems and essays. He holds an MA in English from the University of Cambridge and an MA in East Asian Studies from Yale University. Chan is the author of the poetry collection going home (Landmark, 2022), which was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2024. His second collection is bright sorrow (Landmark, 2025). He reads poetry and creative nonfiction for The Plentitudes and PR&TA. His reviews can be found in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Cha, and The Rumpus, jonbcy.wordpress.com.
These three poems emerged out of moments of great affection for dear friends, all of whom have been integral parts of my life over the last several years. “litany” is dedicated to a group of friends that gather several times a year to share poetry during a particular season in the Christian calendar – Advent, Lent, and Easter. Typically organised as a potluck, each person brings a dish as well as a poem that has been speaking to them in that particular season. This poem was written after our gathering for Lent in 2025, in which the poems collected each seemed to feature time as a recurring motif and subject of reflection. The poets named in the poem formed the basis of our discussion, our last gathering in Lent before our friends who hosted moved out of their apartment at Jalan Hang Jebat in Singapore.
The poem “persimmons” was written for two dear friends who are also poets. We have been constant presences in one another’s lives for several years and have continued to share poems we have been working on, usually without fear of judgment or bad faith. My friend Eden offered the prompts “persimmons” and “butter”. That became a launching point as I recalled Li-Young Lee’s poem “Persimmons”, while also looking to weave in lines from their poems, including Jing Min’s recently published poem “Terminal”. I sat writing this poem at a café in Sydney, bringing together the strands of grief, disappointment, and joy so characteristic of our lives since in the pandemic. Lastly, “faithfulness” is a dedication to dear friends who got married in 2024. We were part of a cell group in the same undergraduate Christian fellowship, and I witnessed the blossoming of their relationship, from friendship to through romance, through the difficulties that came from being in a long-distance relationship amidst the COVID-19 lockdowns. Where they were once based in Manchester and Singapore recently, their marriage symbolised an end to this period of physical separation, and the promise of a new future together. It was at their lunch reception, looking around at all my friends from university, that this poem began to kindle in me."litany"
by Jonathan Chan
that evening, in the little flat
among the black and white terraces,
nestled beneath the rain trees,
the patience of fasting was pressed
into a room. or was it monotony,
or drudgery? the impress of time
in strained anticipation? the wallowing
procession of the hours, and the days?
we came bearing boxes and books,
containers opening to salad and sourdough,
gochujang pasta and corn butter rice,
chocolate cake and tempeh crisps.
the warm evening glaze coated
conversations of long cycles through
plains and protests, the elusive relief
from papers and projects, the slow
nursing of fresh wounds, how
some of us had sought a seeming peace,
pried away from scrolling anxieties.
each poem was offered into the air:
Adnan and Oliver, Zagajewski and Dante,
Julian and Pádraig, Wiman, Darwish, and
Zineh. time was our motif. time was
our protagonist. the years go by
in advents and lents. we folded
our fingers into hearts, succumbing
to the silliness. we departed slowly,
one after the other, love and lightness
bringing us into the eve of easter.
First published in Eunoia Review
"persimmons"
by Jonathan Chan
for Jing and Eden
sloughing the firm skin,
falling between fingers,
flesh ripened and soft,
auburn juice glistens
beneath the pallor of
the sun, persimmons
too often a metaphor,
sweet, sticky joy. anxiety
can be ravenous,
ebbing and eroding
the composition
of silence. there are
ways to deal with all
this wanting, to fold
it into something other
than despair, unease,
even if it seems that
this oblivion can only
pick up speed, that there
seem to loom, always,
the breaks between a yell
and a prayer. the light is still
shimmering, against the
serrated char of toast
and the glisten of kaya
and a perfect square
of pale butter, against
the arrangements of
green, magenta, yellow
bouquets in their glass
vases, against the stage
in a bar in the east village
where we read poems to
a room we will never meet
again. probiotics for the
soul, you could say, waiting
always to ripen for moulding,
the promise of emerging into
new fauna, skittish flutter
of wings carried by the
winds, into the orange
sunset, over the waves
dancing in the harbour.
"faithfulness (ii)”
for Emily and Tim
in the little church
perched on the hill
resting beside
the temple where the
incense floats and
the mosque from
which the muezzin’s call
soars, there is a dove,
fixed in stained glass,
that descends upon
a sphere, the sun
sharing its rays
across. the light shines
through, upon the groom
who runs around and the
bride practicing her
walk down the aisle.
you feel the passage
of seven years, each
its own chasm, the slow
march toward their day
of jubilee. how he wrote
her letters for every day
they were apart during
an epochal pandemic.
how she listened and
bore his pains and griefs
after long days rounding
the wards. there are the
years where days happen
and the days where years
happen. what, the scriptures
ask, is anxiety to a sparrow?
or worry to the mynahs
in the air? providence
shimmers in the rustling
of grass. every guest
receives a handwritten card
and one stuffed penguin. at
lunch, your friend’s toddler
smears noodles everywhere
but her mouth.
First published in bright sorrow (Landmark 2025)
Jonathan Chan
Managing editor of poetry.sg
Affiliate, CPI Scholars Network
jonbcy@gmail.com