The Mourning Apparition

A final prayer from minarets afar fades resounding,
As the celestial mate of the the holy crescent,
Atop the gilded dome, o'er towering parapets shining,
Casts eerie silhouettes across the desert.

From the sands as a shroud of black velvet emerging,
Swiftly she drifts, the peaceless medieval soul,
Across the barren land, into the old quarter sleeping,
Amid the swaying date palms and lifeless adobe,
The restless phantom continues seeking,
Her long lost love she couldn't abandon.

For when they were traced, when found eloping,
In times so cruel, love couldn't be chosen,
Forgiveness was bleak, punishment impending,
Her knight was slain, she cursed to grief eternal.

Now she wanders, till nighttime dark goes fleeting,
When her cold and solitary morphed form degrades,
Into a sinister serpent slithering,
Banished unto her diurnal grave beneath the dunes.

And so she persists, lost in time, wondering,
Where did I err? Is love so undeserving?