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Penang

There was a beach in Penang once,
it is there now, but for us,
only in this moment and no other.

You and I walk along a golden ray of sunset.
I think the small boarding house
has gone somewhere else.
I cannot recall its shape, its walls, and windows,
they have flown away, they roost now
like the fruit bats that hang
from those cloud forest mists laden dawns.

Yet, here you are in the palm of my hand
laughing still at a silly joke I made out of thin air.
In that moment
the whole world was an audience for us.
We did not overhear
the surf whispering to the dusk:
how all that is or ever was, returns to leave
in the same moment.
We did not see, nightfall blindfolding the sea.

That tropical Island, has moved on
to another beach, another sunset,
and now only appears to us,
as a featureless blue sky, and the sound
of distant laughter.



Copyright © Eric Ashford

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