By Heidi Trautmann

Memories of summer days keep returning, images of our childhood, when berry picking in the woods, meeting our friends at the shore of a nearby lake or a river, or even under the water hose, mom or dad were holding for us. Ball games in the evening, or hide and seek, being allowed out late and the mosquitoes were dancing in columns.

Later, romantic evenings as teenagers, we girls meeting and giggling, telling secrets in each other’s ears, then the first date. Oh,oh,

And now, we are grandparents, let others do the wondering of how to make the world go round. We still worry about one or the other thing, our heart bleeds to see the foolishness of people getting involved in wars, but we recognise with the experience of so many years lived that mankind does not change. So, we better sit back and enjoy these beautiful summer evenings in Cyprus, when the setting sun casts a spell on everything, intensifying the colours around us, widening our hearts and letting us forget for a moment hardships, pains in the neck or elsewhere, the heat of the day. Everything becomes easier in our minds, and lighter to carry.

We smile, just for us, lost in memories, or at each other, and perhaps make a poem.

One summer evening in Cyprus

for my granddaughter Alexandra

Look, girl, the evening comes.

On my green table I collect thoughts

for you on a piece of paper with

some last sun specks across it.

From the dark ravine, the frogs

call “quak”. There is no water this year.

A bird, carried by the up-winds

cries out to say he is the master.

Dark trees have their tops on fire

the wind plays with their finery.

In the red rocks high above sudden sparks

where the gods' hammer has hit.

Ink blue the shadows that come

the young evening has arrived.

Mosquitoes dance in columns.

The air is soft, and the old day goes.