Monday, June 06, 2005

Travels Continued

At the Alhambra

At the Mirador
watching sunset fall,
reddening the walls and lofty towers
of what remains of the Alhambra.

Seven palaces of the mighty moorish sultans
reduced to three at the hands of the christians,
allah enscribed in the very walls,
cedars from lebanon,
marble and wondrous colored tiles,
water and fountains everywhere
praising the glory of their god,
emblazoning the idea of creation everywhere.

Men with christianity in their heads,
blood and avarice in their hearts
determined to eraticate an alien idea
and replace it with their own,
left carnage and destruction
in their terrible wake.

Six hundred years have passed
since islam prevailed,
eight hundered years of civilization come and gone
like smoke and wind.


Regarding Time and its Passing

Amazing how quickly the
present flows into the past
emptying into the reservoir of
all lost seconds.

Debris of experience
accumulates in the maelstrom
of things remembered,
then forgotten,
only to pass into the
etherial palace of the imagination.

Old man's eyes
turned inward
genuflecting upon the alter
of all the moments
captured then dispatched
by the sharp edge of
death's fine saber.

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