Insects along the parched forest trail contribute non-stop commentary to the faint, fine print of my tread, as taut shadows hatch fragile frail-agile butterflies, their wings’ mock-eyes rounder than a bird-skull’s dusty astonishment.
I ignore reassuring signs to Sam Sing Wan 三星灣, to Ma Nam Wat 麻籃笏 (ocean’s promise clings loudest to landlocked roads), allowing hills to take me over and over the gradually mounting ache in my legs.
Abruptly, in a braille of rubble, the path gutters to a shallow furrow: pebbles of chalk white as bone shoot like marbles from under my soles. Distracted by danger, through a gap in a barricade of endless drab foliage, I am smacked suddenly hard in the face by supreme sea-blue . . . That slab of wet moon-rock licked loudly by foam hisses
Tai Ngam Hau.
Photograph: 香港西貢天后廟 Tin How Temple, Sai Kung, Hong Kong (2018)
