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  Straits Times 11 Apr 07
Green patch of city now a construction site
Letter from Thomas Cody

IT IS early in the morning of Easter Sunday in my long-time adopted home, Singapore. The sun is beginning to shine through my window.

But it is not the sounds of nature or the languorous promise of a day of rest that awaken me. It is the noise from the neighbouring construction site, with shouting workmen, trucks gunning their engines and the scrape of a grading shovel digging earth and rock.

Before I raise my frame from the bed I think a moment about Easter. In my home country, in the northern climes, Easter is as much an acknowledgement of the Earth's rebirth after winter as it is a wonderful religious affirmation of life and promise. Spring, nature, budding greenery - they are all a part of the day.

So it is with a tinge of unease on this Easter that what has awakened me is the relentless, grating din of construction, activity that seems to share no joy for nature, respects no right of quiet, even early on a holy Sunday.

I gaze now out of the window at the construction site, located in a buffer area between Leonie Hill and Irwell Bank Road.

I see a once-green patch of earth scarred by machines and hands that will impose another energy-consuming footprint of an edifice on this plot of nature.

I will still enjoy this glorious Easter day. But with sadness, a part of me will mourn the death of another quiet oasis for bird and man alike and will fear for the remaining quiet patches of verdure here in Singapore.
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