Olive Grove. Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Olive grove.
Trees bent yet health
Sea-view but sea
Away three kilometres.
In the distant fog of ten kilometres
A light-house oil-fuelled
Begins work early in late dusk
Turns on slow
As everything is there
Including an aged donkey drawing owner and cart home
Before deep dusk becomes a lighter
Night.
And the bats already black hairy and circling
From the initial few dozens multiply.
Youth goes hand in hand with poverty
here but with health ok:
poverty marks the dry fields
lean trees
thin as siren ghosts.

A girlish voice sings sensuously
And with cadences.

The donkey sudden stops with every song.