I’ve traced the journey
countless times
hovering in the liminal
where dream borders obsession.
I stare at the map
caress the tiny-print names
of towns with bleached white facades
I murmur their names out loud
los pueblos blancos
mangle the pronunciations.
Your sun-baked skin will look even darker
against alabaster walls
so, too, your dark eyes
los ojos noir
‘eynayim kehott (עיניים כהות).
This is the trip I take with you,
my traveler dimyoni (דִמיוֹנִי)
conjured from psychic landscapes
where memory borders obsession
and I sleep peacefully
held in a phantom embrace.
My finger traces Spain’s coastal line
from Barcelona to Tarragona
where we will stand in the time-worn remains
of the Amfiteatre Romà,
silent now, once bustling and alive,
hundreds of years of Mediterranean sun
beating down on these walls
has bleached out the names and faces
of all who have ever stood here,
time and history overwhelm the individual story
and makes our love affair –
anyone’s love affair –
a passing insignificance.
Further down
to Castellón de la Plana
we will share paella and sparkling white Cava,
ride mountain bikes
to coves lapped by the Mediterranean sea
our bodies lapped by the warm expanse
of traveler’s time.
On to Calatrava’s
inspired curves and arches,
ribs and mounds,
audacious the way one man’s vision
transformed a dry river bed from the diverted Turia,
proof that beauty and art can dwell
in places where waters’ lifeblood withers.
My own youthful waters, monthly red rivers,
the holy water
which carried a firstborn son, without a basket
downstream –
have ceased flowing
my own life force diverted,
flowing in unfamiliar directions
through the eyes of new love,
the sighs of less urgent need.
The red that flows now –
deep red Monastrell –
fills a goblet we’ll share,
share, too, the curves and folds
which breathe new life
as your fingers travel my ribs to spine to ilium,
my ossein white remains.
As if we aren’t the tourists we most certainly will be
we will turn inland before heading south
stroll through the narrow streets of Requena’s old quarter
imagine everyday life in this Moorish fortress
celebrate our good fortune to be here during
the midnight parade of the Wine and Water Festival
wearing old clothes we won’t mind ruining
as we walk and laugh
marvel at the wanton abandon
what it means to celebrate a full harvest
with bull runs and fire hoses of wine.
On our last day, we will drive to Málaga,
sample the fresh wares along the Mercado de la Merced.
We’ll bypass Marbella’s luxury and opulence
push on to Tarifa, eat our last tapas, then board the ferry to Tangier.
Morocco – our Morocco – I don’t dare to dream.
Won’t tempt the fates any more than I do
writing of Mediterranean yearnings
at the end of a Pacific Northwest summer day –
the romantic bordering the ludicrous.
The clock’s rhythmic clicks
and the squeals from children next door
punctuate the quiet of the house
as the unexpected light rain
propels us indoors
the palette of wet grays replacing my mirage of sun-bleached stone.
It is enough to travel freely with you
tonight:
To celebrate
the full harvest
dance in the mayhem
find ease in all night drunken revelry
laugh
at ruined clothes
at hair drenched and smelling of red wine
at your silly, whole-body-buzzed smile
trace the coastal terrain of your chest and soft belly
initially foreign to me
practice the language of your sighs
stumble through the awkward moments
when nothing I say
sounds the way I hear you
delight when I speak you like a native.