Stillness Before Time Resumes
I arrived before birdsong, before even the guards had stirred. The corridor exhaled its centuries in the scent of lichen, ash, and wet sandstone. No wind—only the curl of incense from a monk’s hand. Then He emerged: Ta Reach, eight-armed, garlanded in jasmine and time, veiled in half-light. Not standing in glory, but stillness.
I waited until thought dissolved. The camera remained open—not to take, but to receive. One breath. One long exposure. Later, in the darkroom, I shaped that hush with shadow and light. Every curve remembered.
Still before the gods—
stone listens more than it speaks,
light becoming vow.
Also in Library
The Crocodile and the Moon Eel: A Tide-Bargain
A crocodile waits in hush where river bends to moonlight. From the silt, a pearl-lit eel rises, whispering a bargain of scale and tide. What is given is never returned whole: hunger meets silence, storm keeps watch, and the river writes its law in breath.
Field Note: Blue Hour at Angkor
The blue hour settles over Angkor like a hush in stone. Naga coils dissolve into shadow, carvings soften into silence, and hunger without teeth endures. A sketch becomes listening. Each fracture is a hymn, each hollow a river. A field note on patience, memory, and the stillness that lingers.
At the River’s Bend
Dusk leans against the bank and the water forgets its hurry. A heron holds one bead of light. In the reeds, someone counts—commas between breaths. The river practises memory; cicadas re-thread a broken necklace. Perhaps art is only this: placing the pause so the note can be heard.
