NOW I LIE IN THE SUN

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 23, 15 January 1945, Page 17

NOW I LIE IN THE SUN

BY

Unnamed the day, nor Sunday nor Monday, but just to-day as was yesterday. Everything still and the sun is warm. A smell of damp wood and leaves gone rotten to cover the hard coral with rich earth ; to grow more green ttees that will spring up everywhere, higher and higher, and ripened, will fall to the ground and become damp and rot. The leaves are drooping in the warm air, and small flies playing in the brilliant sunlight. Here is a beetle, vivid red daub on black ; there another, gaudy yellow. A lizard is lying along a dry stick ; when the shadows were long I have seen him spring forward and shoot out his sticky tongue to catch an hovering insect, but now the shadows have shrivelled he is lying. along a dry stick in the sun. Through the drooping palms comes the dull murmuring of a tired wave as it booms on the pink coral. Then it sighs like the wind in the pines back home as it seethes over the rocks and pours back into the fissures. Along the

sharp horizon, the sea changes to deep blue. Then there is no sound. Then another tired wave booms on the pink coral. The leaves from underneath are yellowgreen and finely veined in the sunlight. A grey cloud in the sky. Soon it will rain. The lizard and the flies will go away and the raindrops will feel cold on my hot body ; but sometime the cloud will go away and the rain will go away and the hot sun will shine again. The lizard with the smooth yellow belly and wrinkled green back will come and lie along the dry stick in the sun and the shining-winged flies will play in the sunlight and from underneath the leaves will show yellow-green. A butterfly will softly flutter through the air and gently settle on a leaf, displaying its gay colours to the sun. Soon the dripping from the leaves will cease and all will be still and quiet save for the tired waves booming on the pink coral. And to-morrow will come and be to-day.