AFTERNOON VIGNETTE

Today I saw

the slumbering sun

filtering through the green lace

of the gulmohur

making tie-and-die spangles on the wall.

I heard a trilling

deep in the afternoon’s belly

as it slumbered, slowly digesting its day.

The cry of the palm squirrel.

“Every time it chirps,”

said B (who happened to be walking with me),

“It raises its tail,

and brushes the air down.”

I returned to the wall

with the golden spangle.

While I was walking

it had shifted shape.

What had looked like

openings in the tent wall

riffed open by sunlight,

was now a sea-horse

and some other shapes

my imagination couldn’t begin to decipher.

One moment of looking,

one moment of pausing,

and the kaleidoscope turns.