The de luxe tourist resort auto court

Of the senses

Has deck chairs and bright umbrellas, and over these

Palms, always palms preside. But not from the palms

Themselves, or their fruit,

But their silhouettes and rustlings proceeds the dazzle

That blinds and deceives,

As a shell at a child’s ear strums forth the sea,

As a spangled bauble burbles of old bazaars,

And as sirens sweet in the storm-torn straits—but enough!

—Oh, essence of palm,

If all those bearded explorers with frozen fingers

Had planted a tropic grove in polar snows,

What poet would not have been warmed, and what motel

Would not have been aired and graced with vast verandahs

Where sunstruck nations

Gathered unto your fronds, while hired beauties

Squirmed to and fro in bikinis, and herons and pelicans

Languidly glided over the arctic sea.