In the luminous evening of Los Angeles, where the city awakens in a murmur of gold and stars, I gazed  as one gazes at a dream that slips away upon the bewitching procession of women. Their figures glided across the paving of the world, ancient goddesses entwined with modern bohemians, and my heart, faithful to its eternal haunting, did not know where to turn for love blinded me for each of them.

Sabrina Carpenter, FKA twigs, Zara Larsson: names that fall like prayers upon my lips. Their hair, flashes of sapphire and fire, carved waves of light; their skins, under the painter’s brush, resembled the marbles kept in the temples of the heart. Tyla, with her loose bun and braids, carried the innocence of a distant isle; Doechii, reinventing the palm hairstyle of the eighties, revived an ancient song; Hailey Bieber, unchanging, offered the calm of a face smoothed by gentleness.

O women! You who mingle art and life, you are the secret tongue that speaks to me in the silence. Never did the glory of the Grammys shine with more radiance than that reflected back to me by your glances: a mirror where my tender and grateful love beats without cease.