The swoop of memory speeds me
along the Silk Road, past a row
of almond trees with bloom like snow

reflected in the lake that we
once swam in, natural and free,
alive with love and afterglow;

nearby a caravanserai,
where marmalade and fig conspire
with homely embers in the fire

as we hear azure music play
in harmonies of everyday
beauty, to which poems aspire.

A response to a challenge to think of ten ‘beautiful’ words and include them in a poem to Beauty