Ko Lan Island

She clears her throat. Wakes me. 
Brown plaid sarong and white blouse. 
The round field hat sits up on her head, 
backdrop to a weathered face. She’s paused 
as if just walking by, face turned this way. 

Where did she come from? 

I’m on the beach; no idea what time it is. 
The other boat in the cove is gone; 
Suphit’s is still canted on its side, anchor exposed 
in the white sand, waiting for the tide to return. 
Other boat must have belonged to the food hut 
where I had lunch. No one else on this little island.

Turning toward me she sets her shoulder baskets 
and bamboo pole on the sand. Her face crinkles 
up to her eyes with her smile; no front teeth. 
Speaking slowly and loudly in Thai, 
she points to one of the baskets. 
Do I want to buy kanohm—a sweet rice desert? 

There’s nothing so universal as street food, 
but here? I sit up. Not hungry. Curious. 
How Much? Tauwrai Krahp. 

In the tradition of street vendors, she says 
special price for me because I speak Thai: 
five baht; holds up five fingers. 
Too much for a Thai to pay, but too low 
for a farang to bargain over. And it happens to be
what’s in my pocket—my change from lunch. 
I nod. Tohklohng Krahp. 

It’s good manners to sit with your head level or below 
the head of the person you’re speaking with. She kneels 
on the sand, and from one basket, draws a wood block 
and a rusty hatchet; from the other a length of fire-singed bamboo. 
Three blows and it splits open. It’s stuffed with sticky rice 
sweetened with coconut milk, and a small purple berry. 
I pick it out with my fingers; tell her I like it. 
Worth the five baht.

It’s a small island; she lingers to talk. 
You’ve not been here before, she says.
Tells me she makes her kanohm in her son’s kitchen; 
roasts it in the bamboo on a fire outside. He lives
in a village between Bang Saray and Rayong. 
She used to live in Pattaya, but too crowded now. 

Before I can ask how she got to this island, 
she begins telling me about her grandchildren. 
As she talks, palm shadows appear on the sand, 
slip toward the water. A slight breeze teases the cove. 
Her eyes follow mine to the anchor. 
It’s beginning to submerge. 

Abruptly, she thanks me, presses her palms together in her wai, 
and shouldering her baskets and adjusting the load, 
swings the pole around like a sail boom on a new tack. 
She resumes her course up the beach, 
arm moving with choppy strokes as she heels over 
against the strain, sarong skimming the sand, 
feet kicking up spray. 

Suphit appears by the anchor; gestures to me. 
Time to return to the mainland.
                        

Chonburi Province
Central Thailand

In procession, thunderheads 
saffron in the going-home light, 
leave the silver thinning clouds 
on monsoon flooded fields.  

On my left, below the road, 
a white egret on one leg—
right-side up on the mirror—
separates sky and water.  

I move between two worlds: 
Where I work, people long 
for the plastic one they had
to leave behind.

	____________________________________

My skin prickles with too much salt and wind and sun. I’m leaving 
a Gulf weekend. I always hire Suphit and his aqua-painted fishing boat 
to take me among the islands where dark green foliage tumbles down 
to salt-crusted gray stone rising to it through high tide mark. 

There’s a place where purple starfish on the bottom slip beneath white sand 
as my shadow swims across. And when I tire, I go to a remote cove 
where a young couple has set up a palm leaf hut with low table and slab bench
to serve roast red snapper on bamboo skewers, freshly steamed crab 
with yellow curry sauce, and cold Singha from the ice chest. 

And when the breeze stops, I nap on the slight give of warm sand 
in the shade of a young palm while I wait for the milky green tide 
to refloat the boat. 

Weekends have their own color. 

	__________________________________

As I drive, the thunderheads—flat on the bottom 
like pieces on a glass chess board-— scud north
toward Bangkok, leaning into the work ahead. 
Rain at home tonight. 

Soon the road will lift me 
where it crosses the Bang Pakong. 
I’ll get a glimpse of the Gulf water. 

Weekend light is leaving. 
Takes the color. Windshields
on oncoming cars are dark. 
I switch on the headlights. 

	__________________________________

Street’s dark when I return. 
As I latch my gate, 
the porch light shows 
the new orchid has a bloom.
                        

I’m playing London Symphony’s “Song of India,” 
as I did on my record player one evening 
fifty years ago while our apartment cooled 
in Bangkok’s hot season. I’d opened the doors for air. 

On the driveway, more than twenty large frogs gathered 
in a circle of yard light, bugs, and hot concrete. 
Little Yoko from flat #2 ran frog to frog 
in her squeaker shoes, but they kept one hop away. 

Palm trees spaced along our compound’s wall were lit 
like columns along the walls of a concert hall—
disappearing into darkness at the rear 
where I’m listening: Song of the Indian Guest, 
gentle, haunting, and far away.