Recuerdos de la Alhambra

(picture is from internet)

That day at the Alhambra, my lord, you came to me with a smile. The night was dim, and the red walls were the evening glow in the night sky.

You took me through the Jannah and the long corridor. There was a row of carved arches in the patio, and the bookshelves were full of books. The myrtle stood shyly in the atrium, and the roar of male lions seemed to be in the Patio de Los Leones. In the Sala the magnificent ceiling was high, and the pink curtains were drooping.

Your whisper was a gurgling stream, and my laughter turned into a cheerful spring. The horseshoe-shaped arch was your lithe figure, and the hanging vines carved on both sides was my curly long hair. I was your harp that had not been tuned and played for a long time, trying to make a sentimental voice in your palm. The night was an A minor broken chord. You fiddled with the vibrato. The walls were continuous in the night.

When the first bird chirped in the early morning, the sky was still dark and the sleepy eyes were still dim. Your palace was in the mist, covering the rolling hills of Granada. The mist gradually dissipated, and the first light of the sun rose. Your palace gradually brightened like pearls ----- the pearls I collected when I roamed the world were glittering in emerald. When the birds began singing in turn, we were playing our A major together in the boundless mountains. A day passed and you lied down like the grass on the ground. I rode across a thousand and one nights, my anklets clinking in the darkness.

That day I dressed up to say farewell to the Alhambra. My lord, our chord echoed away slowly. But I know that every corner of the palace in my memory, could strike my heartstring, and re-issue the sound that used to be.

This night I am alone here in a faraway place, offering you this song, the sad and sweet memories.