writings on a leaf

this new country. i've been here for three weeks now, clopped the cobbled streets in my new boots to pay my un-asked for, un-demanded dues to the city - and am surprised and delighted by it every single day. it's almost like my curiosity and delight is my currency, and the city only accepts, the way it accepts every other currency but grants me safe and and almost guided passage.

it seemed like only yesterday that i had just landed on the tarmacked earth on the tips of my toes here - only that was many yesterdays ago.

the deep sky after the roads, behind the cobbled sidewalks, the quaint brick-and-cement buildings, the people-who-aren't-people that somehow seem to populate the entire of this city sprinkled in such a pleasing manner, like a backdrop that goes on and on and forever - how the sky of this land delights me.

it brings me such glee me to get behind this building, that bridge, that corner - to finally round on the edge of that elaborate sky, to examine that fabric of the endlessness of it all and to marvel when i finally hold the corner of that fabric between my finger and my thumb - but i can never find the end. of course i can never find the end! - because there's just this much sky to discover and uncover, this many bridges, buildings, clock towers to round in on and examine and scrutinise.

the feeling is akin to living in a life-sized polly-pocket environment, only nobody's waved any magic wands.

each time i talk to someone on the street it's almost magic. the polly-pocket people actually talk back to me. they talk back to me!

and the rain. the cold, wet, autumn rain. i didn't know i could find such joy in knowing rain: what it is, how it feels like, how it hurries people on the streets and the sydney-an disregard for brollies - rain.

i thought i knew what it was.


it is friday today, the day my awaited visitor returns to his home country, where i too hail from.

the same way i received him in my arms that chilly monday morning of his arrival, i saw my awaited visitor off this windy afternoon of this friday. strange how it seemed to me like i were watching myself see this tall, posh, handsome man off at the train station - a suitcase, a smile. an autumn, a kiss - then the glass separated us. i chased his footsteps with mine, until i could no longer follow him. so he was gone.

the said awaited visitor was here for four days and i hastened each day, against crisp kisses of autumn air upon my cheeks, to meet him at where he stayed and he in turn waited each day to have a breakfast of milk and cereal with me.

he usually breaks his fast much earlier and each time i would arrive too late.

i would ask him he were hungry before we eat and each time he would look at me like he observed oceans in my eyes, smile and with two understated shakes of his head say, no.

then we'd eat that simple meal of honeyed cereal and milk, and were happy.

my cousins ask me where i go each day for i am not a sydney-slicker still.

who is this visitor who hails from your home country? where have you been? where did you go? what did you do, what did you see? they were curious.

as i was curious, even though i knew exactly who he was.

i asked myself, who is this person i wake up too early and put on perfume for each morning? to forget, disregard the new old-ness of this country, to neglect the fact that i live in that house with my many cousins, only to suddenly remember that i have to return when the hour gets late?

who IS this visitor, cousin? they asked.


dear awaited visitor. today you return to familiar lands, where the sun rises at six-thirty and starts to set at seven-two. i walked home alone today.

and my sky cries when you're not around.