Bougainvillea       with their bright white eyes.  Flowers at the center of several vivid bracts.  Nervy   as roses, daring you to pluck them barehanded and be stung by hooked thorns.  They pierce like a good poem, vibrant colors luring you.  The vines climb voraciously, avoid attempts to keep them trim.  They followed me to Morocco and Spain, appearing on a roof terrace overlooking the ruins of a house in Marrakech, in a cool Andalucían courtyard.  Even in Granada's Alhambra.  Patterns on its walls resemble Arabic and at times morph into language, the whole structure supported by decorative bands.  We ran into bougainvillea in Portugal, creeping up Lisbon's St. Jorge's tower, planting itself in myriad patios, twisting around pillars in Sintra's Pena Palace.  And at home, bougainvillea waited for us, magenta blazing on the redwood trellis Michael built, a tunnel we pass through each time we return home.     - Lily Iona MacKenzie