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Paradise: Facets Of Shell Point Living

by Tim Napier
the son of Arthur Napier from the Arbor

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I.

“Is this Paradise?”
“No, this is Shell Point Village,”
Said the winged angel.

Wind whips the surface
Of Calusa, turning emerald
Green to white diamonds.

Cool colors collide,
Blossoms from another world,
Multifoliate.

Flowers the color
Of amethyst and rose quartz:
Who are these gardeners?

Calusa River,
Canal, lagoon, bay, gulf, man-
Grove: stitched together.

Threaded by ibis,
Snowy egret, blue heron:
The landscape, broadcloth.

Above, an eagle
Floats on thin air, hungrily;
Osprey watch and cry.

Below, manatee
And porpoise share lagoon space:
Separate, equal.

Afternoon, August:
Cumulus columns uplift:
Yes! Summer mountains.

Banyan walks on legs
Grown from its own branches – roots
That dangle down like lace.

Mangrove the color
Of jade; sky, of turquoise;
Lives of giving , gold.

II.

His picture is in
The dictionary under
“Ugly”: Pelican.

But watch it in flight
And it transforms itself
Into the word: Grace.

Without a wing-beat,
Pelican glides at crest-top,
Until bird, gulf merge.

He can ride the air
So close to the cresting waves
He becomes the gulf.

When he dives head-first,
He shatters the gulf, like glass,
Rises with his catch.

III.

Like a boy of 12,
He breaks all the rules of
Deportment: porpoise.

He grins – a better
Grin than most humans – happy
In his small freedoms.

He plays: whirls-twirling
In mid-air spinning before
Diving down to sea.

His peel of laughter,
Inimitable:
He jumps and flicks spray.

IV.

Brown as mud, lolling
In the shallows, rolling
Slowly: manatee.

The snout rises, takes
Air, snoozes on the surface:
Leaves its bulk below.

Placid is this cow:
Barely breaks the still water
When it surfaces.

Sometimes we see it,
Muddy and bulbous, tail flat
As my great aunt’s fan.

Unlike the children
Who don’t like broccoli, you
Eat all of your greens.

V.

O, luxury, an orchid
house by the canal: tended,
petal by petal.

Bejeweled by orchids,
The house is a color lode:
Garnet and opal.

Inside the orchid
House, humid: orchids hanging
Climbing, clamoring.

Spare the rod, spoil the
Orchid: they seem to know just
how pretty they are.

Tri-part blossoms: two
Regular; the third, a lip
Swollen to a pout.

The colors are not
Possible: purples too deep,
Yellows like the sun.

We wish our lives could
be so colored: brilliances
never to be lost.

The air is heavy,
Wet with reproduction:
Orchid, its own root.

VI.

His cry is simple,
Single: like
A cry in the night.

Circling, circling, fish
Dive from his shadow passing,
Too late: talon’s prize.

Parents ignore him;
He is on the edge: for now,
Only his fear flies.

Then, he lets go, and,
Flies! Out over the water,
Over the mangrove.

He must be famished
After his first flight; it’s what
made him fly: hunger.



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