Midnight at the Alhambra

Midnight at the Alhambra  
    
     I walk the storied halls of the Alhambra gazing at mosaics embedded in the walls of time. I see you, my gypsy woman. Your dark eyes gaze through your black velvet veil in the trembling moment of awareness. You sing whispered yearnings in the Moorish palace. Your fingers strum the lute, like a lover deep in mystic fervor. Your jade inflection ignites into a fiery necklace of song. Your voice is a fragrant, come hither. Galician lady of the night, you pour burgundy love lilt into my thirsty heart.    
     Women, with henna illustrated bodies, dance to a drumbeat syncopated with their rhythm of desire. Their dark eyes burn like candles in a temple of sensuality. Yet I only have eyes for you my love. But I am only a servant of King Alfonso X, not worthy so much as to pick up the crumbs under thy table. You have bigger dreams of a Byzantine prince whose gold ring is worth all my life savings.    
     My gypsy woman wrapped in her shawl, you look to the east. Your smile radiates love light in the soft embers of sunset on an isle of peace.      
     You bathe in the fountain of lions to wash away the dusty memories of love gone wrong on trails best forgotten. Under the gas lamplight, you are an icon of womanhood more lustrous than any earthly art. My thirsty eyes drink you in.    
     I offer you Sufi wisdom in the “Rubaiyat” book. You hold its tattered pages like a treasure from heaven and read with a hunger for the beauty of its words.    
     We sit together in the court of lions. But you are naked and shivering. So I offer you my cloak. Like a fiery desert lioness, you say, “I believe men and women are equal.”    
     To which my bewildered words spill, “You look uncomfortable.”    
     You hand me back the Sufi book. “I have to be careful because my heart has been broken many times.” And so you follow your path to another room.    
     How can I span the chasm between us? I find you fanning yourself in the courtyard of the maidens. And I take off the gold ring my father gave me. I say, “Here, take this. But may I have just one night with you? Just one evening and your passage to Constantinople is secured.”    
     “I thought of taking you as my lover. But such ideas are banished from my mind now. How could you expect me to sell myself for your ring? Had you offered me a wedding ring the outcome might have been different.”    
     “The ring is yours. I will never see you again. There is nothing I expect in return. You will need this when you reach the gates of Constantinople. The gatekeeper there requires a fee.”    
     Like the earth embracing the sun, you draw a circle around me with your hug. Your eyes open up to vistas of the Hagia Sophia and your smile turns into gilded sunshine.  
      Our waltz of words enchants me on our last night together in the Alhambra where I lead you through the room where the Sultan’s concubines bathed in the Moorish night. But your soul holds a thousand such rooms which are far more exotic and beautiful than the ladies who shed smoky tears here.