A drowsy afternoon slumber

somnolence creeping in the grass

drugged in dreamlike torpor

underfoot, the wild creeper climbing drunkenly

up the dosing trunk of the guava, sleeping off

the wine of the cloudy sunshine, the wash

drooping, groggy in the tender heat, wafting

soapy from the clothesline, the fanned leaves

of the papaya spreads drowsily open, drinking

the yellow liquid warmth, the fruit turgid, hanging

green-orange ponderously pendulous,

enfolded by the velvet air, the spider weaving

its sticky tales in strings of silver mazes, a sudden

shuddering fluttering of pigeon’s wings, a startled

crow’s indignant caw-caw,  the koel's sharp cry,

an insect’s lazy buzz-buzz crawling

through the tranquillised petals of nodding flowers

sun-burnt fallen leaves, sodden

soaked by a monsoon shower --

a book slipping from insensate fingers

its pages falling open haphazardly

its half read story crawling out of the open pages like ants

tumbling stumbling to the slumbering earth