A woman lies on a poolside chaise lounge
twenty short feet from Tampa Bay.
The sun casts soft shadows on her white skin,
one of the many delicate yet grievous wounds
caused by life in an intensely physical world,
wind storms, swells of summer heat,
collapsing stars, leaves falling from trees,
rain frozen to hail hard on the roof,
thunder rumbling up from the deep
knocking down chimneys, shifting walls.
A pelican and its shadow glide near the shoreline.
The reclining woman glancing up sees the beauty
of nature; the swooping bird, the palm trees,
a snowy egret strutting on the sand,
sunlight glistening on blue water.
But to a small fish glancing up toward a water bug
the gray shadow strikes terror in the waterproof
but not fear proof aquatic heart.
The woman, reading a lotion stained paperback
novel full of villains, victims, murder and intrigue,
is transported by fiction induced fear from the illusion
of the ‘Peaceable Kingdom’ where lions lie with lambs
and pelicans in flight are pretty, not predators.
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‘The Peaceable Kingdom’ is a painting by Edward Hicks, an American
artist and Quaker minister (1780-1849). The painting is based on two
passages from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah verses 11:6 and 65:25.