Alhambra

We walk the morning light unmoored in the sky
at the Alhambra, tree-lined water puzzle.

High air is honeysuckled and splashed with laughter,
stop, pose for a shot here, my daughter puzzle.

Prancing fountains beneath eternal skies spark,
entwine and twist and dance your lyric puzzle.

Rustling the cypress, a bewildered dove clucks,
your finger stops tracing a mosaic puzzle.

Dark the alcove, hushed homage we pilgrims pay,
dark the shade as we haunt this plainchant puzzle.

Seven hundred years of red stone mornings, hide
among the folds of this Earth-ancient puzzle.

You are younger, not less mysterious, babe,
changing hourly, minutely, growing puzzle.

How long yet till you outgrow me, child mine,
lose me in the mists of time’s closing puzzle?

The faded Emir lost in his emerald hills
tessellated solitude a defeated puzzle.

Disjoint ivory in the Granada air slides,
cascades down arches a completed puzzle.