The shimmering light green bush by the wayside
was made of condensed spring air,
and by touch as soft as the aroma of Danish pastry.
It had sprung up at dawn,
this transient beauty
and will by noon have disappeared
under car exhaust and road dust.

Then as night’s shadows paled and became day
I saw around me a green landscape,
sun tipped blue weed
and delicate maroon poppies with petals
that trembled slightly in the ecstasy of life.

‘Bom Dia’; A voice down at the olive grove sang,
it was Manuel, with a hoe slung across his shoulder,
on his way to till his small plot of land!
And the day commenced.