where morning dawns and evening fades

I am sitting on a beach in Malaysia looking out over the ocean. I am not facing the open sea, but the Straits of Malacca. Between me and "home" are Sumatra, the Indian Ocean, the Indian subcontinent, more Indian Ocean, Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean. If I were on the east coast of peninsular Malaysia I could imagine North America far off beyond the horizon, but I am on the west Coast, looking in the wrong direction.

Behind me huge trees with broad, low-hanging branches make deep pockets of shade along the beach. From them, and from the dense, tangled foliage of a steep hillside comes the high-pitched, irregular static of insects, sometimes vibrating in a hum, sometimes escalating into a screech. Low thunder rumbles behind me, interrupting the steady sound of the washing of small waves on the sand.

On my left a thickly forested point juts out, a deserted crescent beach in its center. To the right is the skyline of the city of Port Dickson, littered with tall vacation apartment buildings and communication towers. All along the beach old concrete and stone stairways curve down to the sand, some ending in stone walls, some in crumbling concrete platforms. Their origins are uncertain, overgrown as they are with vines and creeping plants. It would be easy to imagine a castle at the top, though there is more likely an aging bungalow or camp.

There is no familiar ocean smell here. The crisp, pungent, marshy flavor I am so used to on the North Atlantic coast is replaced by the tang of damp foliage and the fragrance of flowers, heavy and cloying. The water is warm, not refreshing, but still somehow soothing. It feels thick with salt.

The straits are a pale, murky green instead of the bright blue of the open sea. I can count at least sixteen ships on the horizon, trading places with each other as they move up and down the busiest shipping corridor in the world. Freighters with cranes and smoke stacks pass enormous barges looking like huge bricks. Some, obviously empty, ride high in the water.

The shallow waters near the shore are filled with bathers - Muslim girls in long sleeved shirts and track pants, their colorful head scarves bobbing about in the water, children in shorts and t-shirts or white underpants, men and boys in anything from long pants to speedos. There is not a woman in a bathing suit on the beach. Everyone is swimming in street clothes.

Between the bathers and the cargo ships speedboats weave, pulling "banana boats" - long, orange torpedo shaped inflatables, with yellow and blue striped pontoons on either side. One is ridden by seven Muslim girls in orange life jackets, straddling the torpedo and hanging onto the pommel-like handles provided. The climax of the ride is always when the driver slows the boat suddenly and flips the banana, toppling all the riders into the water. They scream appreciatively at the proper moment.

The roar of the speedboats and the laughter and cries of the bathers are broken occasionally by the bicycle bell of the Good Humor man who rides up and down the beach on his motorbike equipped with a small freezer cube on the back. He carries sleeves of ice cream cones behind him. Like all proper Malaysian bikers he wears a helmet in the scorching sun, even on the trafficless beach. He does not appear to have much business, though he is just now stopped by two girls in long sleeved shirts and track pants, one with a head scarf and one bareheaded, who choose ice cream bars out of his freezer, pay him 2 ringitt each from a small zippered purse, and retire to the shade under the trees.

The sky is hazy at the horizon, becoming brighter blue as it stretches farther from the ocean. A single, three-dimensional bank of cumulus clouds rises like a genie from the sea, surrounded by wispy, smoky cirrus clouds. The sky looks hot. I feel anonymous and very far from home.

I think of the verses from the Psalms I read this morning, "You answer us with awesome deeds of righteousness, O God our Saviour, the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas. . . Those living far away fear your wonders, where morning dawns and evening fades, you call forth songs of joy." I don't feel exactly joyful, but I am content to be here for now, sitting on the edge of the farthest seas.