The last half hour

(My sleep, assuming the next morning is ‘working’, is divided, on most days, into two unequal halves- the first usually sound six-and-a-half hour and the last eventful full of sounds half hour before waking up; this piece is a tribute to the second half)

Bathed in the rays of the virgin sun

Oh, wait- Poetic lies!

There must be sun somewhere

But doesn’t it care to sneak in,

On a tranquil winter dawn.

A thin blanket pacifies the raw breeze

That takes shelter in my room;

Ah, I always forget to shut the window

Before I go to sleep.

But I have been woken up

By distant horns on roads,

Blarings of senile engines

And occassional screeching tires

Brushing past the wind

With a whooshing sound.

Then I pick up the cellphone

Lying leisurely beside my pillow;

And as I try to look at the time

It asks for the pattern password

Such a turn-off

In those blessed moments of ‘half-sleep’.

As trembling fingers vie

To get the pattern right,

Digital figures glow-

Oh, there’s still twenty minutes of sleep.

Turning from one side to the other

Restlessly crawling-

Won’t I get up for pranayama,

As I promised Baba?

Five more minutes of sleep- without bother.

There’s something more disturbing-

Ah, the dripping sound

Incessantly invading my thoughts

From the bathroom-

Again I forgot the plumber

Wish I’d saved his number!

With every passing minute

All these sounds turn scary as hell

Louder than ever;

The horns, the tires, the crows, the water

And finally the ‘music’.

I promise to myself-

I’ll never let me hate that beautiful song

Because it’s the morning alarm!