Where Father Terrance Lived

On the shores of the Timor Sea
on a dune of flowery white sand

in a hermitage
cobbled from corrugated sheet
whitewashed
walls guyed with cables against the wind

above the roof, a cross
made from broken oar lashed together

black rubber flippers, snorkel, mask
swimming for hours along the reef
with the shark

every evening at the typewriter
letters to friends all over the world
a long correspondence
with a Zen Buddhist monk
in Japan

then, the lamp
reading into the night


seven years


~Bruce Chatwin, from The Songlines; adapted by Philip Harnden in Journeys of Simplicity.