Staying indoors, watching the light play hide and seek,

Shadows sprinkling on doorsteps,

Crows fluttering outside the glass window

Once the window opens, it peeks waiting for junk food,

flying away with a chocolate cookie disc.

While it crushes and grinds it, relishing every nibble,

a sparrow crosses the road self-inviting itself to the globule of feast.

Shadows shift behind the window from the work station to the burning skin of the bean bag

Oh, Karachi... your summers are thrilling...

The summer of 2020 comes with an added twist,

Power outages and Covid-19 cases soaring,

and of fireworks of coughs and sneezes and fear shrouding each being of contracting the deadly virus,

after all solace is found in windowsills.

Understanding the cawing of crows,

the symmetry of the freshly built nest in the banyan tree,

while the crow furnishes it with oddly shaped twigs,

There comes thunder,

lightning strikes with the claw of a kite,

Its flight had landed on the crow's nest.

With ensuing tugs at the bricks and mortar that made the luxury abode,

the dark brown creature sprawling its wings, clutching a bark,

firm in its beak - as if the piece completed its puzzle - and took flight.

On a nearby pole the crow was witness to the disruption,

Landing on its torn home,

it threw away the remnants of the predators feather and started mending with a leaf.

The scenes from the window sill were always full of colour.

The pandemic lifted the curtain to nature's beauty

for the eyes to stare out and about...

Look up at the sky and observe.

Oh nature... your colours and flutters, and scents.

Images: Mariam Khan