This is Paradise

Here is the peaceful postcard paradise
A considerate sun slaves overtime
The moon dances to a soft guitar
The champagne rain bubbles and warms
And June lasts a full twelve months;
Sun-washed, moon-dried,
Diamond set in the lava ring
Of browngreen mountain and rainbow valley
In the blue jewel case
Of the Pacific.

The seven main islands of Hawaii
Born two thousand miles from California
Are inhabited by people, pineapple
Sugar cane and Pearl Harbor
Grown dependently together--
This much is in the travel folders.

The rich cruise here in winter
Planes bring the middle class in summer
(The poor see the sights any time
At their neighborhood movie or on T-V:
Who says there’s no equality in America?)
With air above and water below
Subject to municipal regulations
And official boundaries
Afloat on the ocean,
You enter the City & County of Honolulu
A thousand miles
Before you reach
The City & County of Honolulu
(Discount any comments
From birds and fishes--
They have neither voting rights
Nor civic consciousness)

Bring along a blank paper mind
Until the Island of Oahu
Inflates from dime to dollar
And then a sack of bulging bullion
Split by the worried brow of Diamond Head;
See the languid palms
Dressing the shining coral shores;
Bright houses and slick buildings
Like quarters and dimes
In a pocket of greenbacks;
Come luxury liner
And see the little welcoming boats
Like chicks around a mother hen;
Brown boys in bright trunks
Diving to spray tourists
With splashes of Local Color;
Hula dancers waving their hips
To conduct the Royal Hawaiian Band;
Come by air
And see the flyspeck mountains
Spring into gaunt giants
As the land reaches up
Like a friendly hand;
Come either way
And wear a lavalier of flowers
On that greeting drive through strange streets
Glowing with the brights prismatic people;
Now enter into the baited door
Of your tourist trap in Waikiki,
Pour your eager flesh and bone
Into a bathing suit,
Dash to the nearby beach
And sit;

Sit while barefoot boys bob by
Twanging ukes;
Sit while waves regularly report
Their quotas of spray and surf board riders;
Sit for dinner under soft stars
Sit until the night grows confidential
And solicits for his scented woman, Sleep
Now take a postcard to your room

Write “Having wonderful time---”
And go to bed, murmuring
“It’s really true!
This really is Hawaii!”

Tomorrow, long after the sun
Has wandered into your room
Sat awhile, and left his calling card
You will leisurely arise
Breakfast on papaya,
Guava jelly and Kona coffee
Then buy a gaudy Aloha shirt;
Now start your conducted tour
Of the island,
See for yourself the fabled sights
Leap to life from the guide book;
Go to a luau and eat like the natives--
The quaint, friendly, childish natives;
Pinch the buxom bottoms of the islands girls
While your wife makes eyes
At the sleek brown boys;
Loaf and live
By all means live;
Go to the Outer Islands
Visit the bubbling volcanoes on Hawaii
Huge Haleakala crater on Maui
Wonderful canyon on Kauai
Or stay in Waikiki;
This is Paradise
Any way you take it--
And so two weeks, a month slip by.

Now it is time to leave
Return as president of that Iowa bank
(Good old Iowa, the REAL U.S.A)
Back as buyer for that Boston store
(Good old Boston, pride of New England);
You’ve had as good a time
As money could buy
At prevailing prices;
(That explanation
By the Hawaii Visitors Bureau
Was logical:
“Everything’s shipped in, you know”)

You’d like to come again
Not next year but sometime
But no matter
You’ve plenty to tell the folks back home,
You’ve seen the peaceful postcard paradise,
You’ve seen the bright prismatic people
And now you know Hawaii!