Golden Quiet

✏️ Day 28 – Golden Quiet
 (Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan)

My pencil woke up whispering today—
soft, respectful, like it had entered a palace.
The page glowed even before I touched it.

It began to sketch domes,
golden and round like morning suns.
Then came the water,
reflecting the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque,
so perfectly that I almost didn’t know
which was the drawing and which the dream.

The pencil paused to tell me a secret:
this mosque stands partly on a lagoon,
its bridge made of marble so white
that even clouds blush beside it.

I shaded a few ripples below,
and the reflection smiled back at me.
When I signed my name,
the pencil shimmered faintly—
as if it too had learned how to bow in light.

✨ If your pencil met its reflection, what truth would it draw first?
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Why do people write?

I’ve often asked myself if it is vanity—an attempt to show off, to parade vocabulary and polish. Sometimes it is. There are diaries that were never meant to be read, and yet the handwriting curves as if anticipating an audience.

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Temple Tunes

✏️ Day 27 – Temple Tunes
 (Philippines)

My pencil was tapping today,
a beat I didn’t recognize at first—
until Manila appeared,
bursting with church bells and jeepney horns.

It raced across the page,
drawing the old stone walls of Intramuros,
where every arch seemed to echo a song.
Then it curved and leapt—
a jeepney appeared,
painted with colors the rainbow had forgotten to keep.

The pencil paused and whispered a secret:
there’s a bamboo organ here,
in Las Piñas—
the only one in the world still singing after 200 years.
I smiled and drew its pipes as slender stems,
each one swaying in invisible wind.

By the time I signed my name,
the city was humming.
Church bells, jeepneys, and pencil strokes—
all keeping time with my heart.

✨ If your pencil could make music, what would it sound like?
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