MANGOES AND MASSAGES

I lived for six years on a tropical island.

Those who know me can tell you what island it was, but I shall keep its name nameless here.

If you read all of my poems you can figure out from one particular poem the name of this island.

Every day I swam in the ocean.

I didn't swim all that hard.

I mostly just floated on my back---ears submerged---and paid attention to the serene silence.

I lived about a mile from the ocean, but I could still hear the waves roaring at high tide.

My first apartment on the island was only a hundred footsteps from the ocean.

Then I moved into a condemned house that was five minutes from the ocean.

This house was in the thick jungle, and was isolated from people and cars.

A winding dirt road went down to the house, and my roommates and I could easily hear when a vehicle was approaching.

My roommates were a young couple who planned to get married under the ocean.

The groom-to-be was a former Navy Seal, and both were licensed massage therapists.

Their clients ran the gamut from businessmen to lawyers and senators.

And teachers.

I was one of them.

The sunny massage room was across a hallway from my room.

Our jungle house had a shower right outside the back door, and there was a claw foot bathtub outside to take sun baths.

A large avocado tree grew where the shower was.

Breadfruit trees surrounded the house, and their ripe fruit would drop on the tin roof and make very loud thuds.

There was also a mango tree that I climbed.

It was high enough for me to see the ocean over the jungle’s canopy.

If you walked through the jungle at night, you could see the lights glowing from tiny flowers.

Paradise!


IT'S ABOUT RENEWABLE RESOURCES AND PARADISE!