My sandaled feet went flip, flop, flip, flop, as I
Crossed the mellow planks to the other side,
Where a two-feet wide ditch divides
The wooden houses from the quiet woods.
My eight-year-old fingers entwined with Uncle’s –
Rough and scrubbed
Of sweaty, rubber-tapping days.
We walked the narrow, red path – dry and hard,
Patterns of soles imprinted on it.
The five-o’clock light squeezed daintily
Through the tiny holes in the dark and dense
Overlapping oval leaves.
They stood tall and thin – those rubber soldiers
While the childlike underbrush peeked
Shyly between their feet.
Once the shadows disappear,
Brightness seems to close my eye with her gentle fingers,
We stand on the stream’s muddy bank and watch
The milky, brown waters slip between my playful toes.
Up above – the hot, bustling Semenyih road forgets
My hidden playground.
© 1991 Iris Chia
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