Sun expires at noon

Shouts went down the beach
As when the canoe returns heavy with fish.
They came with baskets running,
Crowding around the jeep,
Laughing, jostling, pushing,
Hurling foul names and blows at one another
In a conflagration of paranoiac anxiety.

An authoritative voice boomed out:
What shame! What shame!
Suddenly there was silence,
Suddenly they stopped squabbling,
Hurriedly they formed a queue...

And now they spoke in undertones,
Holding their baskets like floral wreaths,
As though some unknown dignitary had died,
And they in queue to pay their tributes.

No undignified display of emotion,
No expression at all on the face,
When the sun expired at noon.