The Garden Of Earthly Delights

after the triptych of the same title by Hieronymus Bosch

Nic Job

I Saw Her Once, Museo Del Prado

Listening to her speak Spanish is like listening to water bubble over rocks. She is saying something about the painting, pointing first to this panel, then that, with the children sitting on the floor behind her watching like so many little birds, their pinons clipped so all their wings can do is flutter restlessly. She speaks a language I do not know, except for the commands she has taught me.

After the painting are the sculptures; Aphrodite with her stomach rolls, Ganymede and his bird, Ariadne on her couch. I imagine that she is Aphrodite, crouching. Diosa. 

The children giggle at nakedness they don’t yet know to be ashamed of.

~

Chocolate, Gaudi

The city is a hodge-podge of empanadas, architecture, and xacolata.

In Barcelona, they speak three languages. Chocolate, I learn, is one of the few words that they  say only one way: xacolata. I do not know what language this one is, only that it tastes like a clear brook that has been warmed by the sun, and when she whispers it to me it sounds like satin over skin. The city is a hodge-podge of empanadas, architecture, and xacolata. She takes me to La Segrada Familia, but it is no more impressive than the treasure in the glass that gently sears my fingertips. In front of me, Gaudi. In me, xacolata.

I guide her slowly down the center of the cathedral so I can watch the stained-glass windows paint her skin. First, the burning warmth of red and orange, then, precious yellow gold, then, cool leaf-filtered green, ocean-deep blue, and I hold her still under the purple because it turns her eyes to amethysts. 

~

Domingo de Ramos, Tea

Three streets away from our hostel and the city begins to climb the mountain like a spreading wisteria, gilicina swallowing the hillside. Cobbled streets barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast wind back and forth and up, market squares with bunches of flowers hanging from each branch, fresh and vibrant in the warm seasons, but falling away until the cold turns again to spring. The boys in the third-story apartment throw toilet-paper rolls at us, and we are still laughing away our indignation when the aroma of the next square mingles with the alley’s cold stone and shadow scent. It is a mysterious mix of Arabian nights and Indian restaurants and the herbal section of the greenhouse in Lowe’s. Malva salvia the sign says, and lavanda. Sage and lavender, but also pimento ahumado and hindu afrodisaco. I do my best to translate, and come up only with pigments of the Alhambra and a Hindi aphrodisiac. Nighttime in the gardens of the Alhambra feels like stepping into a painting. Mi diosa Aphrodite in Olympian chiton of royal purple satin. She lets me weave a crown of flowers in her hair. Laurels, after all, mean victory, and there is no victory in leaving her here in my dream.