Winter Algarve

Winter Algarve. The hills in the vale are stony and grey except where they have made a road up to a new house that looks shiny and bright for now, but will in time when paint fades look as it belongs. “That old house you see up there was built in 2009, ” a tourist guide will say. The Northerly flies low and cold today olive trees look silvery as big gorillas standing still contemplating a sky that has white, billowing clouds sailing across; a regatta were no one drowns and the winner turns into a miasma and never seen again The stones on the old wall look like grey skulls with holes in like another war mass grave found in Poland. Everything dies and lives, the grass is green and tiny Flowers grow out of weed, paradise for wooly backs, but not for those- the human ones- from St. Helens. The vines in black soil look like dead soldiers held up by wire, not a hint of jollity to come. My wintery vale, winds gets cold my face is as frozen as a newscaster’s botoxed face, but since I need not look young I hurry home to thaw it into familiar wrinkles.