The Return of Summer

by: R.Kafri

Summer has returned, and your trees have bloomed again, with majestic green and bright reds and orange. Apricots hang so heavily on outside of old homes, cherries glisten in the sun, ruby red in color, sweet as sugar in taste and figs poke their heads awaiting the hot dusty days to fully blossom. Your streets, abandoned, quiet and very grey in the winter are now dotted with walkers, joggers and runners, flooded with cars from all directions and drowned with the smell of argeeleh. The schools have gone silent, and the swimming pools have gone wild. The playgrounds empty very late, and ice cream men start their daily tours at 11 a.m yelling my favorite two words: “Roookkyyaaaab;” “Ballaaddnnnaaa.” Even the young boy selling nawa3em [sugar cakes] is back on the street corner. At night wedding convoys with their beeping horns fill the street s, one, two , three, four…..countless weddings. Everyone gets married in the summer.

Homes are busy with the long anticipated warm hugs, hot tears wiped with a kiss on each cheek. Your long, patient wait for your far away children is over for now; they are back, so rejoice, they have returned to fill silent homes with conversation, music, dance, and never ending feasts. Rejoice. For soon it will be time for goodbyes and your streets will empty again, your tree leaves will yellow, and quiet will fall as Fall washes over you.

Oh how beautiful you are in the summer; so elegantly dressed, softly manicured, and revving with life. Never mind a few bad hair days; everything is fixable. Broken streets will be paved, wilted trees will be groomed….It all really does not matter, for you are beautiful, ever so inviting, ever so exciting, ever so ours. Summer has returned, our Big Olive…Shine…