Page 5 - Contrast1967

the good south: an idyll

Ah, the Good south! The sun is so strong you can smell it and
the smell is good. All those body parts, frozen from the cold winter,
suddenly come unthawed and you find it impossible to keep still and
you roll in the sand and try to drink the entire ocean in one swallow.
You bathe yourself in precious oils until you can actually feel white
sickly skin turning that gorgeous tan you crave. The wind blows off
the water 'and you stand facing it, legs astride, defiant. The sun
sinks lower, and still you stand, the tide lapping at your feet, suck-
ing the sand trorn under them, and in the ever darkening expanses of
blue, sky and sea, you see a girl. Her long hair is blown magnif-
icently by the breeze, and she is smiling, singing. A lovely, laugh-
ing mermaid who perhaps once used to sing for thee. But the sun is
down, the wind turning colder. The tide pulls back to the sea, and
with it her image, lost to the waves without farewell.

But there are other days, and you run along the beach, filling
your lungs with sweet, salt-scented air. It is somehoweuphoric and
you are floating, not even feeling the exertion of your movement.It
is like that One Day every year that breaks a cold winter spell.and
you must move--feeling, breathing that Day-- trying to absorb it whole,
clutching it as if it were your vital essence. Finally you return,
collapsing exhausted, laughing on that sandy, but somehowwonder-
ful blanket.

The nights are cool and your skin feels the pleasant sting of
the day's bout with the sun. The drink flows freely, quenching and
exhilirating, and you smugly enjoy the feeling of being able to live
the life of the happy rich, although your wallet tells a different
story. You are pure physical man, enjoying the bounty of his natural
endowmentto the fullest. You are love and God wanting to, bestow
this phenomenonon all your fellow man, as if you did not deserve to
keep such pleasure to yourself. This is your Eden and you will
carry it with you to the ends of the earth.

As you ride back through the South, you are surrounded by the
warm glow that seems to emanate from this land. The highway is
surrounded by smiling "Hi y'all" faces; the welcome mat seems to
extend from the road into infinity. Suddenly you are overcome with
the need to communewith these beautiful people, children of Eden.

3