Tag: Indian Ocean

34 – High Street, Fremantle (Australia)

Image by Karl Powell (High Street), 2023

Sitting on the sunny side of the street, outside Breaks, I am waiting for my coffee to arrive. Late Friday morning, and already the feeling of another weekend yawns far and wide within languid daydreams – somehow stretching the confines of a week into an expanse of extra time. The sky is clear, blue and endless. Outside this café, people are walking through the sun-shined, sea-port town, leaving their half-caught conversations here and there for others to listen and love; streets are already filling up with day-tripping tourists keen to mooch along through the weekend markets further up on South Terrace. Scents of perfume hang heavy in the drifting breeze. A man with a fridge trolley pushes past everyone in his way labouring with a cargo of orange crates.  Large groups of lunchtime students drift – some going this way, some going that way – are meandering in conversations. The sun shines along the length of High Street. A feint moving breeze blows down from the Town Hall and out towards the sea.

Image by Karl Powell, (Sitting outside Breaks), 2017

The café was filled inside with the sound of female laughter and coffees being made – the hiss and rush of frothing milk. It was busy in and around the café. The High Street was full of noise and people. Almost all tables were taken at the café as well. I sat near the door and had the sun on my back. A girl with a coloured pencil case was writing something down on the table I normally wrote at. Some guy sat at the adjacent table, back turned slightly, almost facing the sunshine. He said good morning to some other guy called Ian who walked past. To my right were three young people talking in French. An old woman dressed like an English Vicar muddled past. An office worker walked quickly then dropped to his knee in the middle of the pavement to tie up a shoelace, then carried on walking, swinging his arms: grey shirt white pants. Lovers of all ages sauntered past arm in arm, hand in hand, sharing the sunshine and the moment of this morning.

A plane, low plane light aircraft fluttered overhead in the endless blue. An old man with short grey hair and an angry face grumbled past my table, limping with a stick. Behind him three youngsters walked past, oblivious to anything other than the delight of their own laughter as each jumped up to touch the awnings and overhanging shop signs. Across the road I saw my friend Shane the archaeologist walking down towards the Round House.

Image by Karl Powell, (Street Artist, South Terrace), 2017

At the corner of the next intersection a street artist was painting a large purple elephant in chalk on the floor.

Image by Karl Powell, (Street Artist’s Elephant, South Terrace), 2017

Everyone around me seemed to be reading – heads down in books and newspapers reading. A guy with a white ponytail sat nearby staring at a crossword. The crossword was large and took up most of the half-folded page of his newspaper. He bobbed his head and tapped his feet to music being played from the record shop next door. A watch on his wrist clearly told the time of a quarter past eleven. Nearby, a lady sketching sat in silence, drawing something with great care, crafting slowly, watching her ideas manifest in pictures. As she continued to draw, she leant on her left hand, elbow resting on the table. A giant pink stone sat in the ring on her finger. It matched the pink hue of her fingernails which shone in contrast to her olive skin. She coughed suddenly and turned her sketchbook: she was drawing rings.

Image by Karl Powell, (Pasta Addiction), 2023

Next door, the record shop had just finished playing George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” I had missed most of the song when ordering my coffee but caught its ending. The record shop already had its doors open before I arrived. They had a big, yellow sign telling the whole of High Street who they were: Record Finder – Specialists in New & Quality Used Records and Cassettes. The interior of the shop looked dark and eclectic – hosting the entire body of music in all its forms. Theirs was a portal into another world – a voyage into new dimensions of Time hitherto unknown and undiscovered; music shops, like bookshops, offered up the opportunity to glimpse into distant corners of the universe and come face to face with something utterly unexpected which somehow aligns with your soul, strikes a chord and eventually changes how you see the world forever (such is the magic of music and poetry).

Image by Karl Powell, (Morning Coffee, Record Finder ), 2023

A large, plastic crate of vinyl records balanced on a stool, guarding the shop doorway. Books about jazz sat alongside vinyl in a glass cabinet with words written on a note. Rows of compact discs ran from the entrance into the darkness inside – each with a small, white label in the right-hand corner (like a postage stamp). The ceiling was high. Behind the posters, behind the stacks of records and compact discs, the walls were painted jade green. In the window there was a large poster of Johnny Cash; below it, a box with the name ‘Tchaikovsky’ printed on it. Sunlight fell inside the shop floor, arrowing in through the gaps at the shop’s front and searing the patches of carpet in long, horizontal cuts. A lone seagull moved about the doorway. The bird had flown down out of the sunshine to land at an outside table where people had been eating. The bird landed in silence grabbed a large crust of something, swallowed it whole in one gulp. It then jumped to the floor and moved as if to enter the music shop (loitering in the shadows of the threshold).

Image by Karl Powell, (New Edition), 2024

One of the record shop owners, sat outside the café on a table, watching the world walk by (offering out a greeting to whoever stopped to talk with him). As I took out my pen and paper and got ready to write on an adjacent table, he ordered another coffee from the waitress with blonde hair.

The humming thunder of a Harley Davidson purrs past us, hammering down towards the Round House and elsewhere. Van doors slam shut as morning deliveries are made. A young woman walks up towards town, carrying a book in one hand, with sunshine bouncing through each curl in her brown hair.

My pen cast a shadow on the table in front of me as I wrote. I watched the way it seemed to weave and dance in front of me on sunlit pages; my will, my ideas scorching blank paper forever.

Image by Karl Powell, (Sunshine on a Wooden Table), 2019

This is all I have today – ten minutes here at the cafe. This is all I have. And this is enough. This will work. With a flat pavement beneath your feet and the sun on your face. This is the place to be: sunshine on a wooden table, a coffee on its way and a ticket to ride. Writing on a wooden table, watching people passing by, blessed by the freedom of an empty page. Casting aside the irritations of seeking out a perfect time and place to write; there are no conditions worth pursuing (all are either absent or elusive). We need nothing more than to enjoy this moment: watching ink flow.

My coffee arrived. The blond waitress brought it.  She told me to ‘Enjoy.’ Midday sunshine was in abundance.

Image by Karl Powell, (Darawn Nature), 2023

I looked around the High Street. Opposite me sat an artist doodling and sketching something in oranges and greens. He had a glass jar of short, coloured pencils on the table in front of him. Eyes closed I could feel the warmth of the sun. The breeze moved past the skin on my face and hands. It was nice to have the sun on my face. I recalled the lines in Hunter S Thompson’s The Rum Diary where Kemp and Chenault have made love just as the novel begins to end, and the two lay together in the darkness of his apartment in Old San Juan – her head resting on his chest – drinking rum in the moonlight, listening to the clink of the ice in their glasses in the total silence they shared; it sounded loud enough to wake the whole of Puerto Rico.

Image by Karl Powell, (Bathers Beach House), 2023

I thought of the beach and began to write again. I began to think of the way that the ocean had looked and felt earlier that morning. Swimming in the endless blue. The feeling of saltwater all around. Floating in the waters of the Indian Ocean as they sparkled with summer’s sunshine. The waters had been sculpted and flat, moving slightly, here and there, broken only by the black dorsal fins of two dolphins coming up for air moving far out in the deep.

A scented candle burning somewhere filled the air with perfume.

Richard the journalist walked past my table and said hello. He stopped and we chatted about some news he had seen overnight in Europe. He told me about the new book he was writing. Told me how difficult the process was. Told me that it was a lot of effort for nothing. Told me the only reason you’d want to write something because you are passionate about it. I wished him luck (knowing he’d complete it and succeed – some people are so committed to their art that all the wind they need within their sails is always blowing near by).

Image by Karl Powell, (Cliff Street), 2019

The record shop began to play The Beatles. Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club. After the eponymous track opened, the sounds of ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ filled the air – and as the chorus tells the whole of High Street how to get high with a little help from our friends, an old man with a bulky, blue backpack appears from nowhere and begins to dance across the pavement, zig-zagging in fleet-footed fox-trots.

Everything was as it should be. Everything felt good. Everything was magic.

There was nothing but clear blue skies.

The sun was getting stronger. I sat still for a few moments more. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth of the sun on my back and heard laughter. It would be time to go soon. I failed to notice my friend, Liz, approach my table from out of my range of  peripheral vision. She’d been watching me write as she walked up the High Street. She came to say hello. We spoke for a while (she was on her lunchbreak, she had a cold and had to hurry as she was on her way to get something to eat).

Image by Karl Powell, (Breaks), 2017

Eventually it was time for me to leave. I finished what was left of my coffee and packed up what I had written. A customer entered the record shop as I stood up and the lone seagull scuttled out of the shadows back into the sunshine on High Street. Almost immediately they began to play ‘There’s Frost on the Moon’ by Artie Shaw. I walked down away from the café, down towards the Roundhouse and the sound of a clarinet followed me all the way down to the corner of Pakenham Street.

Image by Karl Powell, (Round House), 2017

The Round House basked in sandstone sunlight.  

*

32 New Year’s Day – Kings Park (Australia)

When was the last time you saw the sun rise? When was the last time you stood before the morning’s yawn and waited motionless in the indigo hues of dawn to see the sun rise? When was the last time you saw the sun rise on New Year’s Day?

Image by Karl Powell,  Twenty Twenty-Three (Perth, Australia), 2023

A bird had been singing just before I woke. Only the voice of one bird. But its persistent chirping echoed through the dark city. There had been a wattle-bird sitting on my balcony the morning before but I really couldn’t tell if it was the same bird singing this morning. There were no other noises. No cars, no sirens, no voices. Nothing. The winds were blowing, though – cool winds, Easterly winds bringing heat from the deserts that would arrive in a day or two. Trees near my home rustled their leaves and branches whenever the gusts blew past. The world was almost dark. A few stars were still visible overhead, remaining fixed and shining. With the coming dawn a luminescence had begun to seep through the dark – there was some light present in the sky, giving it an appearance of a blue drained of its vigour and vibrancy. On the horizon, low in the Eastern horizon, colours formed. There was indigo, white tinged with violet, lightness and darkness. A deep orange pooled from nothing flooding that part of the sky with the intensity of a new day. The New Year was coming. I wanted to go to Kings Park to see the sun rise.

In the short period of time it took me to make a coffee all the colours of the sky changed. I stook near a window that faced out towards the east. There were bands and glows of pastel hues, of pinks, yellows and oranges generated out and dissolving into the dawn. In the city, street lights and office lights all along St Georges Terrace were still visible in the darkness. Silhouettes of buildings and trees were pronounced. Somewhere nearby, a neighbour’s gate had been left unlocked and the wind was persistent in nudging it, bumping it, making it tap and knock against its post needing to be closed tight. In the block of flats opposite me one apartment had its lights on (everything else asleep in the building). I drank my coffee and looked out at the world. I could have seen all this from my bed: sunk down and half-asleep, feeling the morning light enter my room, imagining the black becoming gold, then lifting to Verdelho, feeling the warmth of a waking room fill with sunshine and of being aware of the white light of a new day arriving. Even asleep you can feel the morning move over you. But this was New Year’s Day and I wanted to be engaged with its first sunrise – to go up to Kings Park, to watch the sun rise up over the river and to see it shine out across the city; to be able to remember that moment throughout the coming year (whatever the Fates decided was in store).

Image by Karl Powell, Fraser Ave (Perth, Australia), 2023

Fraser Avenue was the main road that led into Kings Park from the city. It was a long, straight road and from the park’s entrance conveyed a sense of beauty and elegance due the procession of lemon-scented eucalyptus trees that flanked it and rose high towards the sky. I had reached there a little after five (maybe about a quarter-past). It was light and the park was busy. There were cyclists, runners, dog walkers. The morning bus – the 935 from the park to Belmont Forum – was already operating, moving along out of the park towards the New Year. I made my way towards a slope of green grass, Mount Eliza Range, that faced east and out over the city. There were a lot of people already there before me (more than I had expected). They sat on the grass in groups as friends and family. Some leant against their parked cars. Others just stood between the trees facing the coming year. All waiting.

Image by Karl Powell, Kings Park (Perth, Australia), 2023

From where I stood it was easy to pinpoint exactly where the sun would appear. Most of the horizon was tainted orange with some overnight clouds clinging to the sky; the ridge of sharp edged buildings between the river and the city were silhouettes of varying heights (some reflected light and blurred images). As the morning breeze blew leaves moved all around me. There was traffic moving on the freeways that drove into, along and past the city centre itself. A train – maybe the first one of the day – climbed over the Narrows Bridge, rising up then gliding down into the maze of track leading towards Elizabeth Quay. And in front of this view an old man in a blue shirt and trousers walked his dog, yanking it back onto a path as it stopped to sniff and search inside one of the bushes adjacent there.

Image by Karl Powell, Fireworks (Perth, Australia), 2023

And so we waited. That corner of the horizon, a glowing swirl of orange and yellow would be where the sun rose. The colours were hypnotic to look at, waiting for the first chink of sunlight, the first glimpse of the New Year. My mind wandered. The breeze that blew was cool without being cold. Images entered my mind – just a few hours earlier I had been celebrating the arrival of midnight with friends – the passing of one year to another. It had been a fancy dress party; we all arrived in costume and inevitably in character. We had all shared a meal together, everyone had brought something. We ate as friends, talked as friends and then danced together as the midnight hour approached. There was a balcony and from there we watched fireworks crackle into the night sky above the city. From there you could see the whole of the city – almost touching some of the buildings with their lights, shadow and towering height. Down below we watched people walking alone, in groups, singing, laughing. Taxis and traffic drove along Hay Street and Milligan Street, illuminating the darkness with their headlights on. We celebrated the year that had been and wished each other good luck for the one that was to be.

Image by Karl Powell,  Box 28 (Perth, Australia), 2010

And still we waited in Kings Park. That corner of the horizon, where a glowing swirl of orange and yellow continued to grow. The colours were hypnotic to look at, eyes willing the first chink of sunlight to give us a glimpse of the New Year. My mind wandered again. Just a week ago I was sat on Cottesloe beach celebrating Christmas Day. It was a clear blue sky. Waves had rolled ashore (out of the stillness, out of the quiet ocean). A faint wind blew cool air from the East. The glare of sunlight grew stronger, bouncing off the brilliant sun-bleached sand.

Image by Karl Powell, Cottesloe Christmas (Perth, Australia), 2021

Despite arriving early – early enough that the sun shone behind the Indiana Tea House casting a giant shadow across the sand making it cool – the beach was busy. The sand had been pockmarked with small dunes of footprints – made worse with a small, black dog chasing seagulls that tried to stand there. People in groups, of friends and families, sat together facing the ocean. People were happy. Some drank fruit juice, or poured glasses of champagne, others shared food. There had been an old man, up near the rocks, who had sat alone in a chair, wearing a hat, reading a book; I remembered him because his chair had been positioned so close to the water’s edge that the legs of the chair had sunk deep into the wet sand and the occasional waves that washed over his feet made his toes dance. That day the ocean had been flat – flat from shore to horizon. There had been a swimmer just beyond the reef splashing in strokes between the patches of blue and aqua green. As ever, the shape of Rottnest Island was fixed straight ahead. A large tanker sat further out. No matter how many times you swam in the Indian Ocean blue it always left you feeling so alive and content. Floating in the shallows I looked back at the beach and saw all the people celebrating Christmas together on the sand.

Image by Karl Powell, Christmas Morning North Cott (Perth, Australia), 2021

And here I now stand at Kings Park waiting for the sun to rise. I wait with others, facing east, looking out across the Swan River and Heirisson Island. Light is lifting. The entire sky is thawing from the night, turning into a cool blue. The colours of dawn appear in brevities of being, glowing in oranges and pinks before vanishing. More birds begins to sing. A family of magpies walked across the grass at Mt Eliza Ridge looking for food. Just over the Hills and the Darling Ranges yellow light dances and is alive. The sun will rise there. I think about the last time I saw the sun rise. Years ago – maybe ten – I last saw the sun rise here on a New Year’s Day.

Image by Karl Powell, The Magpies (Perth, Australia), 2022

Hints of sunshine glint and coat the side of the city buildings. Only light, not quite sunlight. A lone plane rises up from the land and climbs at an angle. Momentarily it passes in front of the dome of light that sits above the Darling Ranges. The plane turns towards us, aiming to fly overhead, up along the coast, across the Indian Ocean, maybe towards the Middle East or South East Asia. Sunlight touches it smooth body as it moves through the sky. Its engines leave a roar to echo in the empty heavens behind it. The wind continues to blow. Still cool air. Birds chirp and sing. Sky is changing colour. Sky is yellow, is blue, is white. A corona of light is visible. It will emerge there. The sun will rise there.

Image by Karl Powell, Waiting for 2023 (Perth, Australia), 2023

And then sunlight enters the world. The New Year has arrived. As the first arrow of yellow light fires out from beneath the horizon people clap and cheer in spontaneous unison. A bus stops to watch. Happy New Year. At first a small chink of light, a sunshaft, slowly the sun climbs, a sliver, a quarter, a half, and then the full disc of the sun with its full rainbow of glints, squinting blinding light.  A blank canvas. The day begins, the new year stretches out with all its dreams, hopes and promise.

Image by Karl Powell, The New Year (Perth, Australia), 2023

When was the last time you saw the sun rise?

*

22 Sunsets of Rottnest (Australia)

LAZING ON THE SAND
Must be nearly six by now. There or there abouts. The late afternoon stretch to sunset has somehow lumbered into being – dragging itself from out of the bite of the white hot heat of the day. The air feels easier to breathe. The sun seems more relaxed now. The whole world – horizons of sky and ocean – are seared blue. Every shade of blue. And blue they will stay.

Image by Karl Powell, Indian Ocean, 2009

Down at the jetty, down at Thompson Bay, the ferries were readying to leave, readying to depart, returning back to Fremantle, North Port and Hillarys. Hot tarmac and summer heat shimmered, boats floated, growing queues stretched, bikes rested in rows patiently waiting to be hoisted on board those vessels heading home. People slowly file on board. Those on the outdoor, upper deck turn to face the island. Some laugh in groups. Many are lost in their thoughts, watching the honeyed light soften in the  sky.

Up at the Settlement all had been busy. It had had an air of chaos to all its moving parts – the kids, the crows, the bicycle bings. People sitting and eating, talking and calling. Noise and colour moved in and around the shops, merged and blurring, sometimes sounding the echoes of peacocks from over at the Lodge. A table had made itself vacant and I sat down there to open my bag and to drink from a bottle of water I had carried in there. Lost in the moment, sat in the shade, a woman came and sat at my table opposite me. She looked at me until I looked up. Two brown eyes I recognised. Lost in the moment, sat in the shade, we said everything that needed to be said with our smiles. She spun a shell upon the table and our hands met. Lost in the moment, sat in the shade, she looked into my eyes and everything in the dream said, I’m in love with you.

Image by Karl Powell, The Basin, 2009

The path out of the Settlement had led forwards, then split and fractured and meandered into several different directions. Orange chalets with white, wooden verandas were dotted about in the dust of the day’s heat. Busy villas overlooked the still waters of Thompson Bay. Pelicans glided across the serenity of gondola waterways. We walked towards the ocean, through a grove of silent trees, over holy ground, along the perimeter fence of an oval. Bicycles flitted past. Quokkas hopped in the bushes and on dried leaves. Sand had began to appear at the edges of the tarmac. And so we left the moment and walked on into the sunshine, moving towards the Basin and down to the ocean waters that pooled there. Giant Norfolk pines rose up before us as silhouettes. Rows of mounted bicycles stretched across, locked and parked (helmets hanging from handlebars). Below, just below them, the sound of waves called. And everything became blue again.

Image by Karl Powell, Silhouettes, 2019

AT THE BASIN
At the Basin the tide was right in. Never seen it so high. The sky was high and wide and everywhere all at once. All clouds had evaporated long ago. The air was hot and smelt of salt water and sunscreen. The waters of the Indian Ocean, as always, were charged with magic. Patches of dark blue allowing long, flat sheens of dancing colour to illuminate and float beneath the sounds of crashing waves. Far beyond them, rolling waves curled and foamed over surrounding reefs hiding in the depths.

We found some sandstone rocks to sit up on, perched up, looking down onto the sand. They were comfortable enough to sit on. Warm rocks, roasted all day by the January sun. Hardly an inch of sand to spare. Normally there was ample space, gaps and pockets among the towels to sit and stretch out. If the tide was right out then it was possible to walk across the reef, ankle deep, out towards the blue and dive off into its endless silence.

Image by Karl Powell, Low Tide, 2009

There was a big, white lighthouse basking in the sun at the far end of the beach. It was mounted on a cluster of rocks, barnacled and bleached by the sunlight. In my line of vision, bloated waves rose up and smashed their moving topaz against the protrusions of limestone stuck in the sand; wild sprays of rainbow coloured the air. Foam and ocean fell to the shoreline. Then long lulls of silence lapping up onto the sand. The air barely breathing. Nothing hardly moving. The fingers of nearby palm trees desperately seeking something to breeze through them. But only the waters were moving. And those waters shone with its divinities of blue – tinted gins, Moroccan majorelles, clichés of turquoise.

Image by Karl Powell, Blues, 2022

A lone seagull flew overhead. I watched its shadow move across the floating ocean. The bird eventually dropped to the sand, just where the shoreline soaked itself into saltwater. It walked about looking for insects to eat until one enthusiastic wave almost claimed it. And just beyond the reef, a boat full of young men played music; they took turns in occasionally jumping off into the blue. I watched for a while, then their music stopped suddenly and the silence encroached again. Several unsuccessful attempts to start up the boat’s engine engulfed the vessel in choking billows of black smoke. It drifted and twisted for a while before the engine revved up again and then took off slowly around the lighthouse back towards Thompson Bay. There were now only a handful of people remaining; some dotted about the sand, most in the ocean, a few snorkelling around the reef. A small child was throwing a tantrum because his snorkel was not working (his face mask was leaking water). His arms were waving everywhere in frustration. Eventually he threw it into the sand and sat on a towel (ignoring his family’s calls to return to the water).

INTO THE BLUE
And so into the blue. Into the Basin. Cool, cool water, endless and weightless. Stillness and silence. Great drapes of sunlight moving through the floating depths. Fish shimmer nearby. I touch the seabed with my hands, my fingers churn up clouds of sand. Like a mermaid she swims beneath the rolling waves. The slender shoal of long, black hair dances in her every move. The world glints in sea-soaked sunshine. Buoyancy brings us back to reality. She pops up in front of me. I feel her arms around my neck. We kiss. She tastes warm and of the salt water. Her body shines with the ocean dripping from her skin. And that kiss loses itself somewhere between the one hundred sonnets of Pablo Neruda:

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks…

  Al golpe de la ola contra la piedra indócil…

You and I, amor mío, together we ratify the silence…

  Juntos tú y yo, amor mío, sellamos el silencio…

…we make the only permanent tenderness.

  … sostenemos la unica y acosada ternura.

But these were the dreams you had to follow. These were dreams that ached for you to find them. These were dreams you had to realise to touch.

Image by Karl Powell, Sunset at Basin, 2022

EYES CLOSED
Back on the rocks, above the sand, sleeping in the late afternoon. Side by side. Eyes closed and the sound of the ocean keeps calling. Feels so good. Rhythmic lullabies, hushing and moving. Sun feels so warm on my skin, can feel its warmth on my eyelids. The ocean keeps calling until I sit up and look out across it. Waters in the shallows crash then criss-cross and sigh at the shoreline. Sunlight dances through them. Shells are spinning on the beach, smashed corals within the sand (whites, yellows, oranges – flecked and speckled, pinks and greys); some shells are left upturned on their backs transformed into hollowed cups of seawater. A big wave rolls in from the depths. Over to my right a fisherman casts a line from his yellow fishing rod out into the sea. Pockets of sunshine glow in underwater iridescence, shining bright in the navy darkness. A white yacht sails across the horizon from right to left. After a few more crashes, the world is silent again. Over to my left, above the rise of rocks crumbling down to the ocean, the sun has started a noticeable descent; it’ll end up behind them within an hour or so. The sand is already tinted with pinks and softer hues. Hands touch hands. Eyes close again.

Image by Karl Powell, At the End of the Day, 2022

THE STARS AT THE SETTLEMENT
Colours fill the sky. The blue is there, but fading, waning. The sun is setting behind the island coating the landscape in golden warmth. The sun burns its last in a large orange glow. Silhouettes appear everywhere. The lightest of evening breeze skims across the surface of the water. A small boat pulls out. A man in a denim shirt stands on board skippering a voyage into the dusk. Over at the hotel a string of coloured fairy lights and lanterns sway, illuminating the branches there. And you feel so relaxed because after only a few hours this feels like an entire holiday. And you feel so happy when you overhear a girl ask a guy if he’s still here tomorrow night. And the day is ending. Looking at the blinking lights of the buoys anchored in the bays I know I’m in love with you. What a way to watch the day end. The words begin to leave you bit by bit by bit. But I’m in love with you and everything is so quiet and so very peaceful. Grains of sand stick to the skin on your arm. And the stars begin to shine. These are the things that can last for only a day. And I’m so in love with you.

Image by Karl Powell, Quokka at Night, 2022

*

12 Dreams of Mauritius

The world is asleep but I am wide awake. This beautiful room, with its table of shells and walls of coloured art, is quiet. The balcony doors are closed, their green gossamer drapes hang motionless. 4.29am. Awoke about ten minutes ago. Had a really deep sleep. Dreamt of nothing – just one of those bottomless, velvet starless sleeps where the shoreline of contentment never moves beyond the tides of breathing in and breathing out. Everything feels still and at peace. But I am awake and four hours ahead of local time. The rest of this guesthouse sleeps. Most of the other guests are from France (and they are a further two hours behind). Breakfast is served at 8.30am; some of us are meeting at 6.30am to walk to the beach. There is nothing I can do to make the time go faster.

Image by Karl Powell, Sunset Mon Choisy, 2007

Along a road, along a lane was a house in Pointe aux Cannoniers. I stayed there for only a short while, but long enough to love it and the experiences it gave. Due to my jet lag the mornings were longer than the nights. I began each day by boiling a kettle to make some vanilla tea (thé à la vanille), and would sit on the floor of one of the small balconies waiting for the hues of dawn to blend and change across the sky. My room was large, on the top-floor. The space inside generous: white washed walls with the owner’s artwork on display (in essence it was a living gallery). Ocean shells could be found on tables and shelves. In the corner of the room was a small desk. I wrote there a few times (especially during the afternoon), but found preference with one of the balconies seated within its cast iron railing surrounding the drop. This balcony overlooked the al-fresco courtyard where meals were served; it also overlooked the long laneway linking this little world with the long road out of Grand Baie, and to the rest of Mauritius. For that time before daylight, I would sit and write. As my vanilla tea cooled in its red rum colours, I ate mangoes, oranges, pineapples and wrote about the previous day. On reflection, I probably spent no more than an hour there each morning writing, lost in the thing I loved to do.

Image by Karl Powell, Grand Baie, 2007

The sun would rise around six, bringing a honey-coloured light into the sky, creating pastel hues within the thin drifts of cloud smudged high above. Before then, the silence existing at the edge of night would give way to a dawn chorus. The other balcony, at a right angle to where I sat, reached directly into a tree – much taller than the guest house – this was home to a number of small, orange songbirds. At breakfast they would come to tables and eat any crumbs fallen to the floor. But the day would only begin when they sensed the moment before sunrise. At first one solitary voice would begin to chirp in soft, regular trills. Then, within minutes, the entire tree was alive with the most beautiful sounds and songs of morning praise. These birds would sing all day until sunset. Few moments will ever come close to replicating the beauty I heard at that hour. In fact, wherever I am, whenever I make vanilla tea, I am immediately back in that room, in the guest-house in Pointe aux Cannoniers, glimpsing those moments before dawn.

Image by Karl Powell, Coastal Road, 2007

Half the world is asleep but I am wide awake. 6.30am. Waiting for Virginie from Arles. We are going to walk to the beach. People are leaving today. The honeymooners are going home; as are Michel and Marie-Claude. Had such a lovely evening last night. Ate at the restaurant here. Last night’s special was a crab salad. It was incredible. Gérard the chef brought it to me himself. Rahma from Paris arrived yesterday; a guy called Benjamin from Kenya was also eating in the restaurant. After the meal, Michel bought rum for all of us and gave toasts to the future. They were such a lovely couple. We’d spent the day together at île aux Cerfs on a day trip when I first arrived. Despite language barriers I enjoyed their company; they were lovely people. At the end of the night, when we came to say our goodbyes, Marie-Claude was crying. She hugged everyone goodbye. She told me that she wished for me good luck, to be happy and to have a beautiful life. She repeated this twice, slowly, wanting me to remember. Michel and Marie-Claude left at 4am this morning for the airport. I didn’t hear them leave.

Image by Karl Powell, Bus to Grand Baie, 2007

The walk to the beach from the guest house was long, but always worth it. There seemed to be an adequate amount of time to walk all the way there, to swim, and to walk back before breakfast. On arriving back at the guest house Yasmeen, from Rodrigues Island, had just begun serving coffee. Flanking the laneway, all the way out to Royal Road, were tall, stone walls. Plants, flowers grew there. A giant cactus held its arms wide to the sky, showing a giant white flower which only seemed to blossom in the morning. There was also a small shrine to the Madonna hollowed out in one of these walls. There were always fresh flowers placed there and weeping wax candles burning. Once I saw an old woman kneeling there praying in the afternoon. There were tears streaming from her eyes.

Image by Karl Powell, Morning Cactus, 2007

The end of the laneway faced directly opposite a small grocery shop on Royal Road: Persand Royal Super Market. This had been one of my first navigation points when exploring my surroundings on my arrival. From here, I turned right and walked along the long road to the beach. I had been told it was a long walk, but one which was possible (I had even been given a hand drawn map by one of the staff at the guest house). At that hour there was very little traffic on Royal Road – occasional early buses coming in from the capital Port Louis and suburbs such as Goodlands (where some of the hotel staff lived). Occasionally, I found candles burning on the road side, bottles of rum asleep on their sides, sometimes other people walking the same pathway as myself.

Image by Karl Powell, The Roundabout, Mon Choisy, 2007

At the end of the walk was a roundabout with a confusion of roads all branching off in other directions. As long as I followed a sharp left, hugging a path that curled around a shopfront (facing onto the roundabout), I would stay on track. The shop was large – a kind of supermarket selling everything from food to souvenirs; the owner, a welcoming man from Madagascar, recommended good varieties of rum for me to try. Back on the track, past the shopfront, the pavement ended and I would have to walk carefully along the shared tarmac with oncoming traffic. I came to recognise a row of small houses as my final marker; I crossed the road and made towards a thin forest of trees. Then, there were two beaches alongside each other to choose from: Mon Choisy and Trou aux Biches. Mon Choisy was the one I came to love the most.

Image by Karl Powell, The Spices of Life, Port Louis, 2007

The whole world is wide awake but I am ready to sleep. I am walking back along the narrow tarmac road that leads back to the guest house. With the time difference, it is already way past my bedtime at only 7pm. Dusk has fallen, stars are beginning to pierce the sky. Trees hang tired branches down. The air is warm. Everything smells of a day in the sun. I have been down to the beach to swim and watch the sunset. It was not so busy there tonight. Last night was amazing – it was packed with makeshift tents erected between trees, sheets and blankets pulled together; several camp fires danced with leaping flames, people moved to sega and reggae, the sound of drums thumped into the sand. Before my walk there, I went down to Grand Baie to sit by the water’s edge. I saw Gérard the chef there fishing. Not sure if he caught anything. Virginie leaves for Reunion Island tomorrow afternoon. She told me this morning on our walk to the beach that Marie-Claude had terminal cancer. She thought I knew. It had been Marie-Claude’s dream to visit Mauritius. “Good luck, be happy, have a beautiful life.”

Image by Karl Powell, Fishing, Mon Choisy, 2007

Mon Choisy faced west. The beach played host some of the most incredible sunsets, filling the sky with vibrant colour as the red sun slid behind the horizon and across the rest of Africa. As in the morning, the water was almost always flat and calm at sunset. In the morning, the bright yellow sunlight arrowed out from the surrounding trees and illuminated the ocean. Yet at evening, the setting sun faced you as you sat facing the ocean. The colours were every bit as mesmerising as I had always dreamt they would be. It was difficult not to want to share that beauty with someone close. As with any encounter with the Indian Ocean you come to realise this magical ocean is always awake, always alive, somehow connected to you.

Image by Karl Powell, Le Morne, 2007

To visit Mauritius had been one of my dreams, and the short time I spent in the house at Pointe aux Cannoniers was literally a dream come true. During these experiences of travelling you meet strangers sharing the same path, the same moments in time; invariably, they become woven into that dream’s unfolding. From his home in Souillac, the poet Robert Edouard Hart wrote from a house facing the Indian Ocean. In one of his poems he spoke about how the ocean, like many of our shared dreams, has a natural quality to touch, inspire and include all people (transcending cultures, countries and difference):

Tous les songes d’Asie, Tous les parfums d’Afrique, Toute le poésie chimérique, me viennent ce soir avec cette brise de la Mer Indienne…

All the dreams of Asia, All the perfumes of Africa, All the chimeric poetry, comes to me this evening with this breeze from the Indian Ocean…

One of the great indulgences that writing can provide is the opportunity to drink from these wells once again; to travel back in time, to revisit these places and to meet old friends again for the first time. In just a short time, I had met so many wonderful people – from Mauritius, its surrounding islands, Europe – who all gave their kindness and friendship freely. For the whole of today I have been able to see and feel all what I experienced there so many years ago. Individual, separate moments joined together in a whole, shared experience – now colours a part of a dream that lives forever.

Image by Karl Powell, The House in Pointe aux Cannoniers, 2007

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6 In transit, in Colombo

It is late afternoon. The sky begins to slide; peaches and pinks begin to mellow in the clouds, with their pastel hues starting to dance on a few waves far out at sea. The sting of the day’s heat has left now and humidity seems to be building in the air. The sun sags down towards the ocean horizon and is about an hour away from setting. It will be gone soon. The blues in the sky deepen and are filled with moving chunks of cumulus cloud coming in off the ocean, all bloated and saturated with moisture, gliding across the heavens like icecubes in scotch.

Image by Karl Powell, Coconut Trees, 2013

For a while I tried to photograph this changing canvas blooming overhead. One photograph became a frenzy of many, with each one more memorable than the previous (so I told myself). Then you realise the futility of trying to capture some experiences in a photograph. You just can’t. While clouds and colours mesmerise within a private dalliance of time, birds are flying through camera frames – darting past images, evasive when wanted in shot – their songs are audible, everywhere, soft and echoed through the moving leaves of tall, thin palm trees. Row upon row of tall, thin strings of long-lined coconut trees, rise upwards, rustling and alive in this afternoon breeze. Rain occasionally sprinkles. It falls and blots some of the ink from this pen on this page. Words blur as they are written. A rainbow flashes for a moment, radiant in colour, dissolves into nothing in a second. How to capture all this? Maybe it’s better to put away everything those and to just absorb all this beauty as it unfolds, until the day ends (until the adventure ends), all the way to a tangerine twilight. The determination to hold on to the end of something can often blind us to what actually remains; easier, then, to just let go and to be amongst the moments.

Image by Karl Powell, Bentota Railway Station, 2013

Reflecting, then, on this trip. Today has been lived through a blur of concerns: checking out and checking in, packing and unpacking, haring in and out of taxis. Cannot believe how tired I feel. I left Bentota this morning around 10. It was a three-hour road trip along the coast up to Colombo (arriving some time after 1 o’clock). The driver mentioned some new highway, Express 1 or Galle Road, linking the South to the capital (there wasn’t much conversation). My flight out of Sri Lanka leaves at 1am; rather than wait twelve hours at the airport for an overnight flight, I booked a room at a hotel close to the airport.  I’m glad I did. I’ve showered, slept and am now writing by a pool (only two flights ahead of me now – probably won’t be in my own bed for at least an entire day).

Image by Karl Powell, Galle Road, 2014

Sri Lanka has been an amazing experience. On reflection the trip was too short. I should have stayed for longer, a few weeks more, to travel, to have seen as much of this beautiful place as I could. And yet in the short time here I had, I did what I could. There was Galle Fort, a walled area of homes, churches, mosques, temples, shops and cafes (they even have a literary festival here each year). The journey there from Aluthagama on a train was something so special – a two-hour train line running the length of the shoreline with waves breaking as we thundered past en route to Galle (all windows were open and stayed open). There were many kind souls I met there. I hope I can return properly and spend time there. Think I need more time. Think I need to come back here again. There are many places I had earmarked months ago and wish I had seen: Sigiriya and Sri Pada (Adam’s Peak). Sometimes it’s just not practical or possible to do and see everything – better to leave room for next time. The sun is now setting. Wish I could stay here for a while longer. One more swim, then, one more, then time to let the holiday go, to gather up these poolside things and move indoors once again. Clouds continue to float in. I feel so relaxed. I have loved today so much.

Image by Karl Powell, Happy Passenger (Aluthagama to Galle), 2014

Back at my room in the hotel, time is running out. I am trying hard to slow this endless march towards the buzz of an airport but already it is seven o’clock (my taxi pick up is booked for ten-thirty). Everything is ready, everything is packed, everything is on edge – waiting for a departure lounge, luggage trucks on tarmac, flashing lights, empty seats, criss-crossing lives you will never meet or see again, standing still in swirling madness, inane and endless security checks, burning eyes, aching backs, searching for seats, searching for passports. To take a break from thinking, I go downstairs for a meal rather than room service – opting for dahl, coconut sambal, fish curry and an egg hoppa. On my way to the restaurant area, between the lifts and lobby, I had to walk through a mini mall in the hotel. It had a few transit shops flanking each side. Some were open, some were already closed. One shop open sold souvenirs, silks and clothes. An elderly couple worked there and were very kind and patient when I entered. I bought a few scarves and tea towels as presents. When they were being wrapped I saw a large table cloth for sale. It caught my eye immediately. It was made from cream linen and had five large elephants embroidered on it. It wasn’t cheap, nor was it beyond my budget, but the money I needed to buy it was back upstairs in my room. The shop closed at eight-thirty. I decided to eat first and to come back and buy it.

Image by Karl Powell, CMB > KUL, 2013

Opposite the souvenirs was a book shop. It was hard to resist a quick look inside. As always, on entering, you immediately you remember what magical places bookshops are. Able to transport and transform you through ideas and imagination. Shelves full of thoughts, dreams and observations, willing to be shared, waiting to be heard. A man who worked there chatted as I look to choose something to take on the flight. He asked where I was from. He asked about cricket. He asked me what I thought of his country. I told him the truth; that I had loved my stay and found it to be one of the most beautiful countries in the world. He looked at me in silence somewhat taken aback. I mentioned that I hoped to visit again some day and to see other places. I named those places I hadn’t been able to see. He recommended another place. He repeated the name of the place a few times, before I asked him to write its name down in the book I’d purchased: Nuwara Eliya.

After dinner, I returned to my room. Suitcase still packed, ready. I counted out cash for the tablecloth and put it down on my bed with me. There is something so unique about a hotel room. The silent anonymity of the room and your neighbours, the sanctuary from a bombardment of so many new sensations. A corridor of footsteps and a lobby bringing other worlds together. The wonderment of being a citizen of nowhere and the deliberate choice of being somewhere else in the world for a brevity of time. The bed felt heavy. I put on the television. There was a movie on one of the channels. It was Midnight’s Children, the cinematic version of Salman Rushdie’s novel. It was on in the background as I idled time, (re)checked my departure times, repeatedly wished I could stop time and just stay here for a while longer. I watched pockets of the movie before remembering the tablecloth; picked up my money, carried my door key, caught a lift to the ground floor and walked to the shops. The bookshop was closed. Its lights were out. The souvenir shop was closed; its lights were on. I walked closer to look inside for signs of life and read a sign on the door ‘Back in 5mins.’

Image by Karl Powell, CMB: Waiting to Board, 2014

And so at 10.30pm I waited in my room. I was waiting for reception to call and to tell me my taxi had arrived to take me to the airport. Last minute brinkmanship; I could wait. Maybe the taxi was running late (stuck in traffic). There was no real urgency, after all, it was only a five minute drive. Maybe I had to ring to confirm first. At 10.45pm I gathered up my belongings and made my way down to the lobby. Maybe the driver was waiting there. It was empty. It was dark. It was quiet. The Duty Manager at the hotel rang the number I had been given for the taxi. There was no answer. He rang again and left a message on the answer phone. We waited for a short while, talking together, before he offered me a voucher for a complimentary taxi to the airport. It was a gesture much appreciated. I thanked him. Just as he was about to call a local driver, the one I had booked arrived out of the blue. It was now eleven o’clock. It was now time to go. We drove out of Colombo into the darkness, into the ending of another adventure, leaving behind a wonderful afternoon in the night. We drove out into unknown roads and unseen streets, moving, merging, turning, overtaking and arriving at Colombo international airport. This was it, then. The holiday was now over. Back into another airport. I checked in and wandered off towards the security checks. I stared at a flight board, found my flight and made my way to the boarding gate. Everything was on time.

Image by Karl Powell, The First Leg of the Journey, 2013

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5 Saturday Morning King Street

Morning. My eyes are closed. The early bus is leaving the beach. We are heading back to the city.

Eyes closed – I can see wave upon wave shining ashore, clapping hard down on shoreline sand, spraying sunlight and rainbows into the morning blue. Cool, blue sea breeze moves along the far horizon, flecked white tips dance with ships far out at sea. The moon and stars fell not long after dawn and now only the white hot sun burns down on alabaster sand, filling the pure blue sky with glare, arrowing down on the surface of the Indian Ocean.

Image by Karl Powell, Beach, 2019

The early bus is moving, uphill downhill, turning, heading back to the city. Eyes stay closed. I can feel the sunlight still moving through my skin, saltwater cooling the sting, drying now, hair still wet, body heavy, eyes closed, sand stuck between my toes. Arrived at the beach around 7am when all was still cool. Lay on my back, slept off the night, digging toes down into soft sand. Could feel the sun moving across my skin, shadows walking past (all dark for a moment then light again). Sounds of people all around; happy people laughing. Ocean kept lapping waves on the shore. Opened eyes and nothing but blue – no clouds, no commitments, no sense of time. A plane flying high above, climbing higher in silence, moving off, up along the coast. Someone laughed, three big waves crashed with children screaming in distant laughter. Thought about reading my book, but it stayed there half-open on the beach (pages rippling with occasional sea breeze). Eyes close again.

Image by Karl Powell, Indian Ocean Blues, 2018

As the sun angled up and shone down, I eventually made my way towards the blue to swim. I stood at the shoreline for a moment; I saw one endless sheet of shining blue, glittered and large. I saw cormorants swimming and swooping for shoals of fish; I saw my friend Bruce swimming out past the reef (his yellow swimming cap moving parallel to the coast in a group of four splashing out in the deep). And into the water I waded, deeper until I dived. Underneath the water the great dance of sunlight swayed in buoyant silence, flying with me in the ebb and flow of twirling shells in the gin jade emerald blue, moving back and forth, swaying in hammocks, looking at these gemstone wonders swirling around you until you have to surface once again for air.

Image by Karl Powell, Beach Bruce, 2017

The bus stops suddenly. Eyes open. The driver jumps out from his seat apologising to the congregation – he wants to take a photo of the ocean. Yes, it really is that good today. An entire ocean so flat. Nine huge tankers sit out along the horizon, waiting for a berth at the docks. Then out of nowhere a wave moves in so fast, swelling, racing, arcing up then with an intake of roar it collapses with a bang of surf onto the wet sand. The driver has his photo and jumps back onto the bus. The bus is moving again, leaving the beach behind, heading back to the city. Eyes closed now.

Even on this bus I can still feel the saltwater, the morning, the sunshine moving across me.

Image by Karl Powell, de Chirico in King Street, 2021

Mid Morning. Stepping off the bus and into the white heat of the city felt like walking into the artwork of Giorgio de Chirico. Silhouettes, sloping shadows, empty spaces. The forecast for this week predicts we will reach 40.c. Burning, blistering heat. Footsteps slow down a pace. Elsewhere, indoors, the shade is the best place to be. Towards King Street, for a coffee, I cross the road, the busy street, shimmering tarmac, heated fumes, passing traffic. I look up and see Neil sitting at the steps of the Trinity Church. Neil on the Trinity steps. Usually, he’s there sat reading; today he’s there sat talking to somebody. He looks up and sees me. I wave, he flashes a peace sign back with his fingers. I think he’s a writer, I think he’s homeless; he’s always on those steps reading, writing, talking to somebody.

Image by Karl Powell, Neil on the Trinity Steps, 2020

Along King Street, the flow of shade stretched past each intersection. It was cooler here and colours could emerge from the bleaching, blinding sun. Murals of art shared space with open armed palm trees, which stood at the corners wriggling thin fingers of palm leaves in what little breeze breathed. A white cockatoo flew high above the street casting a moving shadow over bookshops and buildings, and the two stone lions lazing in sunshine on top of the old theatre, while a Mauritian restaurant began to prepare for its lunch service with the sounds of sega music moving through the heat.

Up at the café, I found the best seat in the house (outside, to the right, tight up against the windows, on the pavement, facing out). There, everything felt like a Saturday should. There, everything always felt as if today would be one of those days in which you would be destined to meet a special someone, someone special, at some stage during the day, one of those once-in-a-lifetime dalliances that starbursts immediately and sparkles throughout the summer. There, it would easier to watch the world walking past, to waste time productively, to idle, to daydream, to convince yourself that this was an essential part of being.

Image by Karl Powell, King Street Mural, 2021

Sunshine was falling into the street, causing parked bicycles to shine as they leant up against white walls. I watched a woman cross the road. She left the shade to walk over into the sunshine. Her hair lit up at once. Shoulder length blonde curls that bounced in life. A man with long, black sideburns growing down his face and a paunch hanging out of a red t-shirt, gunned past on a skateboard; his wheels tore up a sound on the hot, dry tarmac. A taxi pulled up in front of the café. A man dressed in a suit and a white shirt (no tie), got out. He went into one of the apartments above one of the shops opposite my seat. Next door, two girls sat in the sunshine on the steps to their flat. Gloss black hair, sunglasses screening eyes. Brickwork and white paint, two concrete steps that led up to their open doorway. Three shoppers walked past them, each carrying bags and sullen faces. I saw another friend, Jean-mic, walking slow, slow walking (and I mean s.l.o.w.w.a.l.k.i.n.g), broadchested in his t-shirt and shorts, sunglasses on, arms swinging at his side, overtaking us all. Then the cars came. A blue car turned up the street making noise. A speeding white car followed up, slowed down and sounded its horn echoing on the narrow walls – a bald, smiling face waved at me. I only recognised my friend Antonio moments after his car sped off. An elderly couple walked gently past the cafe holding hands and shopping bags in silence.

A small, dragon fly came to rest at my table just as my espresso arrived. It sat there, warming its wings and moved only when I went to drink my coffee. The golden crema cooled in the white demitasse. Sweet on the palate, warm, sip, swallow, bitter, leaving the taste of roasted smoke cooling through the lungs.

The table next to me – a family of four – got up and left the café. The sound of scraping chairs carried in the air. They left behind a newspaper on one of the chairs and it was open at the horoscope page. I leant over and checked over for mine. I read it – it was pretty good without being accurate. It said it was time for legs to be up and running, telling me I was smart enough to strip away flattering words in order to see what was really on offer; creative skills linked to writing would open the way to new successes. So it said. A child came running up the pavement, his footsteps stopped suddenly at the café to say hello – out of breath and panting, it was Gavin, the son of a family I knew. Carrying a copy of Ian Fleming’s ‘Live and Let Die’ he was running late for an acting class but wanted to say hello. I watched him run off up King Street.

Image by Karl Powell, Caffeinated Scribbles, 2016

The sun was high, much higher than when I arrived and now almost overhead. A spinning disc of burning light. The street was hot. The blues and greens were bright. Passing people blurred and my eyes ached. It was time to go home, to sleep a siesta, and then to find a way to make all the words and sentences of the morning breathe and flow into stories that meant something to me. If they made other people happy, then great. But there was an indulgent purpose in being able to spend an afternoon touching and sculpting the moments of your time from fleeting thoughts and visions into captured language on paper. To defy the running rivers of Heraclitus and to step into that same water twice, to swim beneath the great dance of sunlight, to sway in buoyant silence and to look at all the gemstone wonders swirling about you until you had to surface once again for air. And then, when all the writing had finished, and the Muses subsided, the night would fall flat like the morning ocean, to reveal great pools of starlight and the opportunity to dance again.

Image by Karl Powell, Another Sunrise, 2021

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