Mediterranean Call

Can you hear it? That sound

Of crickets singing in the trees outside your

Holiday apartment. They have been chirping away all day,

Just as the bees did joyfully bustle above your head at dinner;

Vying in friendly competition for the hand of the oleander

Before bed. The honey from their hive is scooped up by

Someone’s nonno and sold down by the market. Glass jars are

Sparkling in this Italian heat; tourists will spend a fortune

Just for a taste of authenticity (but the little village joker

Will sample for free). Everything means nothing: there is no hassle,

No time is spent on worry, for there is no such thing as time –

They call it the dolce far niente, in the language you cannot understand.

The art of doing nothing.

Days are filled with the sound of saltwater running over the legs of girls

In designer bikinis. A young waitress is singing behind

The counter in southern France. Someone, somewhere, has requested

A latte instead of a café latte; not understanding.

The local baker will rise at dawn

To start his fresh batch of croissants for the morning. He is ready

To shout profanities at British holidayers who have not

Bothered to learn the language. Impeccable joy, so early in the day.

There is a buzz hanging in the low air that cannot be found at home. It is too hot now

To remember snowy mountains. They are so far north, and the soft coastlines

Help you forget a thing or two.

Surfers are being swallowed by bright blue waves – is this paradise?

It is certainly bright enough to be Heaven. Sunglasses stick

To your sweaty nose; you wash it off with a gentle splash

And dine under orange trees come nightfall. Wine will flow like

Your wound from climbing the dark cliffs by the beach; red-hot lava falling

Down and down and down

Atop that sturdy, mountainous hand. You are the volcano; you think yourself

The forbidden puzzle piece in this hot, foreign world.

Catalan will soon replace the Spanish tongue as you trek eastwards.

You were once from the east, were you not? From a small town, just outside

Beautiful, brown-built Edinburgh?

Or perhaps you never were, if you have forgotten it so easily.

Fireflies are stars against the black night sky; they form shapes

As they swim in the hazy troposphere. Cassiopeia glares down at you. You could have

Seen her from home. You could learn about her anywhere,

But you want to see her in Spain, you silly Scottish girl? Fine. Come

Dine amongst a million natives and blind them with your ghoulish skin,

It is enough to send a little bronzed boy into a state of shock. You can

Traverse the paths that Odysseus once sailed,

Desperate to return to Penelope. Their love is eternalised in every

Tourist shop by the northwest coast, selling keychains that will break

In a year or two. Ice cream melts down

The hands of children as they play outside, waiting for their fathers

To finish watching the football.

They still remember Euro 2004; that euphoria that overcame

Every man who went home drunk to a worried woman

Hanging washing out the window. You were nine months old,

You would not understand; but you can hear it from Grecian mouths,

Their tales of years gone by. How much it meant. They have a passion here

That is unmatched – it must be the heat.

Balkan boys will holler as you pass by their old basketball court,

Refusing to play. An old, beaten-up ball is ravaged against caged walls,

Bouncing up and down as it splinters under the sun’s sovereign rays.

Toothy grins will charm you for a night as you head into town

With new, foreign friends. Dresses float in the cool, Croatian air.

Could this not be done at home?

Tomorrow, to rid the hangover disease that will not quit your

Newly tanned, ever-thumping head, you jump in the Adriatic Sea

And taste the coldness you once left eating the dust.

One day you will have this freedom that you so desire,

And when it arrives, your childhood room will suffocate

In its emptiness and your old winter boots will house new families

Of spiders, all finding a home in the one that you have abandoned,

Feckless daughter.

You will leave a hole in your mother’s heart: She will grow old without you

Because time will not stop for your self-indulgence.

You are in love with a fantasy that does not love you the way home can,

It has been so long, I think I have forgotten that there was

Just as much beauty to behold in snowfall as there is in this sunshine.