VI

Granada looks in the mirror of metaphor. Overhead, anchored in a forest like a ship in the greenish water of its port, La Alhambra guards its silence against the city and allows itself to stare, responding just as a metaphor would to the restless eyes of those who must seek it.

It appears around a corner, between two buildings, above a plaza, on the windshield of a car waiting at a stoplight. It appears suddenly, straight and noble, surrounded by itself, able to suggest free water and rest to all hearts pierced by a hook of smoke.

In the windowpanes, in the storefronts, in the mirrors of the nocturnal bars are reflected the faces of those who need oxygen, the silver fish that bends and dies in the hard, dry cobblestones. Whoever looks it in the eye can find La Alhambra.

Everything conquered is lost. Fountains and myrtles that murmur of beauty and murmur of death.