Reaction to the span of the Ramadan day was exactly

like the reaction of body and mind to the time-change

on arrival in a country whose hours are far behind

or ahead of the one departed from.   The fuzzy intoxication

of being awake when you were used to being asleep

and to be sleeping when you were meant to be

awake wore off just as the internal clock resets itself

after a few days in a country across a date-line.

The devout Hanife rose in the cold for the pre-dawn

meal; hunger and thirst were a clamor only by sunset.

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Paraphrases from the novel The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer.