wish

wish

this poem was in part inspired by a visit, some 14 years previous to its writing, to the home of Amercian businessman, Jim Thomspon, in Bangkok.  Credited with revitalising the Thai silk industry in the 1950s & 60s, Thomspon disappeared on Sunday March 26th 1967, while holidaying in Malaysia.  The mystery of his disappearance has never been solved.  Sydney, 1997

The view of Jim Thompson’s house from the canal, sourced from the collection of The James H.W. Thompson Foundation,. Acknowledgements to the ‘Wild’n’Free Diary’ where this image was posted and so attributed.

koh samui
an island its
round of beaches
the blood-warm sea
grazing the dark
of evening
with her, her sister
we were sitting under
the thatch looking out
to the mainland
unknown line from
which we’d come
watching the clouds
hatch dry lightning
light stitched across
seconds of sky
i wished myself
there in the lightning’s cut
where things like
disappearance invisibility
self in a new coloured shirt
a ghost’s hand on your
shoulder happened
a rain of bright tree frogs

another storm
weathers blown out
of order trashed that night
in memory
all others like it
forever.

her, her sister
i once knew
now unknown
somewhere else i
see the dry storm
in a summer sky
far from where i am
wish myself there
in the shattered light
where things happen.

Copyright © 2023 Peter Le Baige. All Rights Reserved

Click on the link above to hear a plain-path reading of the poem that goes no further than its footsteps into your quiet.