In the Aranjuez Garden

On the road from Madrid

to Andalucía with castanets

and dancing anklets

below dainty arabesques

there stands a chalice,

a round chapel by a lake,

a place to loiter, a spot

to rest and daze and lift

your feet over this one

foreign, balding head

like that stone of flower

above waters overturned.

There in that sunny Aranjuez

by the willows, by the lake,

a sound of water blends

with a surging sigh of leaves.

So an old gift half-forgotten

is coming slowly back to me,

cool, natural and easy—out

of the blue—a heaven,

I think, shown and emptied

to the couple—graceful cup

of those bright and gliding eyes,

brimming with a smile’s welcome

that turns so simply in one touch

one’s skin to plunked lyric strings,

and a marvel, miracle and wonder

would break out from its shell.