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?