Sketches of Spain--haiku with apologies to Miles Davis

Mirka, Granada.

Her gentle pastel memories

Hang now on my wall.

Strolling the ramblas,

promise of tomorrows world,

Couples hand in hand.

Yes there were yankees 

who loved difference:

Washington Irving.

Hospitality

with honor and gravity,

eternally Spain.

Sunlit and snowy,

the Sierra Nevada

smiles on Granada.

You don't have to be

macho Hemingway to love 

the manhood of Spain.

Gypsy and her child

evade rain in the doorway

of Corte Ingles.

See dark beauty where

Arab, Frank and Visigoth

have buried treasures.

An Englishman,

his daughter now sixteen,

a Moorish palace.

Arab, Catholic, Jew

once blossomed in this garden.

Time for sowing seeds.

Algunas tapas

The tired tourist's dinner

Una cerveza negra.

Blue jeans tighly worn, 

working woman's elegance

in stiletto heels.

Kings and fascists pass.

Churches, hotels, offices-- 

the marble endures.

Salve regina!

If you fall in love with Spain

Hell cannot claim you.