It was a cloudy day in paradise
And the kids came out to play.
The breeze in the pool more like a hissing
Of soft words and supple sounds.
The boughs lag in the wind,
The clouds cruise, the bodies buoy in the pool.
Green and blue and whiteness prance about,
Speckled in yellow and red,
Minding the slings of sun and clouds in peek-a-boo.
Photos and words hang mute
Before the bash of pure experience.
You dear, in the brown:
Trying to be beautiful is difficult,
So be beautiful as you are.
And you, in the red:
Being beautiful is difficult.
And you boys, shaped for hunting and war,
With no channel here but your hoots and somersaults,
Know what no one ever tells us:
Be yourselves, and let the ladies come to you.
Beware the boys, my babies;
They are not men and know not what they do.
But love yourselves, and one another,
And swim.
NOTES
Composed at the WET West Pool of the W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Monday, March 9, 2020. The breeze…sounds The Poems of Our Climate by Wallace Stevens. “shaped for hunting…” “But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks” Richard The Third 1.1. know not what they do The Bible KJV Luke 23:34.
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Yousef Alqamoussi 