Permission of the Water
Before dawn breaks the mirrored skin of Tonlé Sap,
we slow our engines and lower our voices.
This is not a road.
This is a memory that moves.
Ghosts drift here without footsteps—
old villages breathing beneath the flood,
names carved once into doorframes
now written only in current and reed.
They do not rise to haunt,
they rise to listen.
We speak to the lake as our elders taught us,
not with words alone,
but with patience,
with respect,
with hands steady on the wheel.
Great lake that swells and retreats,
mother of fish and floating homes,
keeper of storms and silence—
we ask your permission.
River that runs backward and forward in time,
that carries silt, stories, and bones of the past—
we ask your permission.
Let our boats pass lightly,
leave no wound in your skin.
Let our wake fade quickly,
like a thought you choose to forget.
If the ghosts are watching,
tell them we come as guests,
not owners.
Tell them we remember.
And if the water is calm,
We will know permission has been granted.