Before Sunset

Before Sunset

At mid afternoon the pompous old guard sits
Reading a paper in a shady spot
The green fields are dotted with at least 30 chewing cows
Red, dappled, white and a sturdy jet.

Before four o clock this world seems deserted
To a housewife who dreams away the day
A whole world of women and men are gone
To work in air-conditioned suites of gleaming chrome
A world to which she had once belonged.

The daily laborers and the maidservants
Whose day started
At the crack of dawn
Busily sleep away their afternoons
The precious warmth lulls their tired bones.

My steadfast mates are the gardeners
With shears and scissors they
Click and clack away
At grass and shrubs and neatly bordered hedges
So that the evening walks are more pleasant for the rich.

Between four and five my world begins to stir.
As schoolchildren return in clattering buses
Armed with sunshades the maid brigade returns
A mother comes out to pick up her little girl
A pair of ladies exit by the gate
For a shopping trip probably planned on phone.

Still hours to go and a whole evening to kill with tea
Till dinner time preparation busies me
But that is between five and six,
Before the sun sets
Lies an eternity.

The still air resonates with the sound of the water pump
Somewhere, an air conditioner hums, somewhere a
Car starts with a groan and screech, then leaves with a
Mighty triumphant roar.

Across the bend of my road the noise recedes
Now like a silent photo reel I watch the car
Take the bend and follow the cut across the fields
Far across parallel to my balcony
Now the car glides on buttered wheels through a swath of grass
A gleaming box of steel amidst the green
As it reaches the curve to the highway
It glitters and goes out of vision’s range.


Now finally at half past five
Laughing children chase each other and
The softer smile of nature turns the earth
Into a dreamscape canvas of itself.

Before sunset the squirrel gathers nuts
The cows have done their grazing for the day
The young man tears at the sugarcane with his teeth
The barking dog barks itself hoarse
As it warns us nightfall will be soon.

This is the picture I see
A half an hour before the sun sets
Across my land…
This is the sight I will see more or less
Each day
Till the night my barking night dog comes.

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(c) Amrita Valan 2014