It was noisy

Outside our little stone house in Crete.

 

In the evenings,

With the setting sun,

Rami and I would sit in the garden,

reading.

 

The neighbours

Would chat and laugh,

loudly,

in Greek;

They would shout,

amidst

the children trundling about on hard plastic trikes.

 

Young girls would run in and out of houses,

The cicadas chirruping

In time

with the

owl who was hidden in a tree.

 

One of the children,

Sprio

Who must have been only

Two or three,

Would peer through the fence

And watch us in our silence.

 

Occasionally he would be told to leave us alone,

At other times,

He would just stare

wide-eyed,

Brown, tousled hair

&

reminding me.