Brilliant light.
Sounds coming up to us. These narrow streets
funnel the noise and amplify it somehow, though not aggressively.
Just daily life. Unaffected.
Take it or leave it discourse.
The rubbing along of a more or less polite society
It is music I think. An opera. Small voices confiding.
A mother and daughter. Then the strident tones of a trader.
Rumbling of wheels on the flagstones and sweeping
that sometimes imitates the washing of the sea.
Sea rising in sympathy with troubled air and the moon
and dancing with feathered caps as it races toward the shore
where it rests and tells stories to the incoming waves.
Then they all re-group somehow with an inward suck
and slink back to the great body of water before returning
with fresh stories that only fishermen can attempt to interpret.
Then hasty steps and furtive steps. The drill of some pneumatic tool
and of course the declamatory siren of a car alarm from time to time.
Patrice and I. We in our pools of quiet reflection are content
to sit naked and inconspicuous yet so close to all of the life going on.
We make plans slowly and wonder if we should have another cup of tea.