once living on the hill

On the hill

Those were the days

Living in the cool weather

Clean air silence in the nights

The old bus climbing up the hill

Puffing smoke struggling on the take

The driver only talked all the way

He was familiar with every turn of the road

The jungle treks on the hill

In the broad day light of the morning

Walking into the pathways listening to insects

Watching the golfers tee off on the fairway

The skeletons old building

Stories of ghosts and Japanese occupation

In the enclosure of dense creeper plants and trees

The air still fresh and dry to breathe

Once I volunteered to be a guide

Showing an Australian tourist of the jungle treks

We trekked through the treks

And I nearly got lost in our way

I finally managed to walk it through

I came out from another pathway

I never tried walking there before

So it was a saving grace for me

The decades had gone

Leaving the hill

Now it is just footprints in my mind

And the tower clock standing erect at the centre