A hippie peddles jewelry
Beneath a poinciana tree,
A mother picks her daughter up
Backlit before an endless sea.
All of this life of business,
The local news, the cheerful mess,
Takes place within these sixty miles—
Limit amid limitlessness.
And is this Earth an island too?—
A grain of sand, a drop of blue,
Lost in a lonely vast of space,
That even light treks slowly through?
And are our thirty thousand days
Just such an island when we gaze
Through tossing frangipani boughs
At what must question all our ways?
—Frederick Turner
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Grandmother, What Big Teeth You Have
Many years ago, I wrote a piece for this magazine called “Grim Tales.” At the time, I…
Christie’s Compelling Criminals
In the latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, Theodore Dalrymple joins…
Lethe
He thought he saw her in the orchid house / and all the flowers seemed to disappear...
