How lovely to have you back after such a long time Nancy. This poem is well 
up to par for you and conveys the impression of a langorous time. Poems can 
always improve though. A couple of tweeks in the last stanza perhaps. Losing 
"exactly" and "slowly" would help as youhave already established the 
atmosphere earlier and don't need this emphasis. My spider never won any 
prizes by the way.



bw
James





>From: Nancy Gandhi <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Sub:  Summer Afternoon
>Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2002 13:25:35 +0530
>
>Okay, here goes:
>Nancy
>
>    Summer Afternoon
>
>Flies land and take off from my knee,
>run aground and sweating
>in a bright gul mohur’s shade.
>
>It’s too hot to swat them,
>too hot to think Tamil,
>talk vegetables with the cook,
>understand the maid’s tale
>of disaster on the roof.
>Our mouths open and shut.
>Decisions must be made.
>I’m dull as the red-jowled chameleon
>doing pushups on a branch.
>
>The gardener’s broom swishes
>underneath a neighbour’s singing lesson:
>An exactly quavered line repeated
>in a fainter, younger voice.
>Each phrase ends on a higher note
>like the slowly seeping day,
>just one more step, or maybe two, away
>from resolution.
>
>Nancy Gandhi


_________________________________________________________________
The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* 
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail