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The Thousand Rooms of Her Soul
The Thousand Rooms of Her Soul
Eden grows on Eve’s foothills where ambient sunshine beams down on ancient tea rooms in the sky. You browse the library of the Milky Way whose books are stars with gold leaf pages that have not lost their luster sealed in Alhambra centuries of Maimonides who is your Sephardic Sufi. I watch you in the court of Alfonso the X where you are a female troubadour lost to the mists of time.
You introduce yourself as Comtessa. The tongues you speak come from another rapture whose muse gives you the songs you write that make the green fruit from the tree of life blush into sun-ripened apples ready to be plucked. But the time has come for you to slumber with your sisters in music the Trobairitz who sleep by day to bring starlight melodies for the king by night.
I walk the storied halls of the Alhambra gazing at mosaics embedded in the walls of time. I see you again, 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 a 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 your 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 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 where I lead you through the Alhambra bathed in the Moorish night. But your soul holds a thousand such rooms which are far more exotic and beautiful than even this palace with lute players to welcome the midnight magic. I lead you through the room where the Sultan’s concubines bathe and shed smoky tears.
My parting words are, “Let me tell you a story of devotion. This is the tale of a wife who risked the lash by dancing naked in the bazaar when rain poured from the parched sky but whose husband took the whip for her. The husband was me from when I lived among the Moors. Such strange customs they have in my native land.”
“You are bragging. I was considering inviting
you along with me to Constantinople. But such
vanity has no place in my life.”
“Alas, may I sing to you one last song for the road?”
“What tune do you have in mind?”
“Martin Codax, ‘Song for a Friend.’”
“Oh, you have won my heart. I live and breathe Martin Codax.”
“It isn’t safe for a woman to travel unaccompanied in Byzantium.”
Rowena replies, “Then accompany me.”
“If you need a troubadour then I am your man.”
“Let us join hands in our search for what is virtuous and true. Unlike the maiden in the song, I will not pine for you in vain. Please change the final lyrics to reflect the reality that you will stay by my side even into the great beyond.” And so my voice becomes a lute of love.
Eden grows on Eve’s foothills where ambient sunshine beams down on ancient tea rooms in the sky. You browse the library of the Milky Way whose books are stars with gold leaf pages that have not lost their luster sealed in Alhambra centuries of Maimonides who is your Sephardic Sufi. I watch you in the court of Alfonso the X where you are a female troubadour lost to the mists of time.
You introduce yourself as Comtessa. The tongues you speak come from another rapture whose muse gives you the songs you write that make the green fruit from the tree of life blush into sun-ripened apples ready to be plucked. But the time has come for you to slumber with your sisters in music the Trobairitz who sleep by day to bring starlight melodies for the king by night.
I walk the storied halls of the Alhambra gazing at mosaics embedded in the walls of time. I see you again, 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 a 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 your 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 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 where I lead you through the Alhambra bathed in the Moorish night. But your soul holds a thousand such rooms which are far more exotic and beautiful than even this palace with lute players to welcome the midnight magic. I lead you through the room where the Sultan’s concubines bathe and shed smoky tears.
My parting words are, “Let me tell you a story of devotion. This is the tale of a wife who risked the lash by dancing naked in the bazaar when rain poured from the parched sky but whose husband took the whip for her. The husband was me from when I lived among the Moors. Such strange customs they have in my native land.”
“You are bragging. I was considering inviting
you along with me to Constantinople. But such
vanity has no place in my life.”
“Alas, may I sing to you one last song for the road?”
“What tune do you have in mind?”
“Martin Codax, ‘Song for a Friend.’”
“Oh, you have won my heart. I live and breathe Martin Codax.”
“It isn’t safe for a woman to travel unaccompanied in Byzantium.”
Rowena replies, “Then accompany me.”
“If you need a troubadour then I am your man.”
“Let us join hands in our search for what is virtuous and true. Unlike the maiden in the song, I will not pine for you in vain. Please change the final lyrics to reflect the reality that you will stay by my side even into the great beyond.” And so my voice becomes a lute of love.
Published 19th Jul 2021
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Very romantic, John. Always the nerdy underdog. I mean that in a nice way because even the underdog can have their day. Such insightfulness, it's like you lived another life. You were born in the wrong time, you know that, don't you? Around 300 AD would have suited you, I think & you would have coped. I saw a documentary about Constantinople & how it got very dangerous to be there during the religious revolution, you could say. Does she give up her Prince for you in the end?
23rd Jul 2021 2:55am
An anthropologist named Ruth Benedict asserted that the same personality traits don't give a person success in every culture. The same traits that made a Native American a shaman in one tribe might cause him to meet with miserable rejection and failure in a different tribe. I can't say my destiny would have been better in Constantinople which in many ways isn't so different than our modern age. No, my dream would be to have been born centuries ago in Africa, the Americas, or as aborigines in Australia. Among such groups, I feel at home in modern-day powwow gatherings. But mostly these cultures have been decimated or just lock stepped with modernity. So who can say? But a good story leaves mystery for the reader. So the question of prince or me is left to the imagination. But I will say there are women who shun wealth and privilege for love.
John
John
23rd Jul 2021 4:19am
Lol, yes, there might be some women who would but not many, I think. Talking about the past, wouldn't going into the future be just as interesting? Wouldn't you like to see how we finally effed it up or what became of Walmart? Lol. You see, the trouble with going back into the past is that you would feel the urge to disappoint the folk of that time as to how the world would be. I personally don't think they would like to hear about the change & they almost certainly would not understand its complexity.
23rd Jul 2021 4:43am
I think you underestimate the female character. Once upon a time, I knew a couple. The man was insane in a wheelchair. But each night his gorgeous wife visited him The staff said she was an angel to stick by him. But she did. She could have had another man but chose to stay with her husband. But in this currency-driven age, you have a point. Money rules marriage more so than in the past. And before money made its appearance maybe couples bonded for different reasons. But some women look at the character and it would be a discredit to their gender to overlook or minimize them.
John
John
23rd Jul 2021 4:53am
23rd Jul 2021 5:47am
Another example. I know a couple in which the woman works full time at Walmart and the husband has always been unemployed. Yet they love each other dearly and have been married for many decades.
John
John
23rd Jul 2021 5:49am
In face female breadwinners or marriages in which the woman earns more than the man are growing so I've read.
John
John
23rd Jul 2021 5:50am
I did say some would stick by their underdog out of love. I'm not disputing what you say. 😊
23rd Jul 2021 5:51am
I know a couple in which the woman is a doctor and her husband works when he feels like it and in jobs far beneath the doctor's wages.
John
John
23rd Jul 2021 5:53am
Thank you for clarifying that Billy. Indeed it is a growing pattern in society that women are often the breadwinners while men are homemakers.
John
John
