A Tropical Paradise - July 1 2022

 

A Tropical Paradise

July 1 2022

In early morning

when the tropical heat is not quite so oppressive

a thin older man

with dark skin

taut as burnished mahogany

rakes the beach by hand.

Crabs are evicted.

Dead fish

left by the tide

gathered up.

And skeins of seaweed

still dripping wet

disposed of out of sight.

The white sand is imported,

all the rocks

have long been removed.

The beach is cordoned off

so the locals don't trespass,

and picturesque palms

that were never native here

sway in the steady breeze

that blows in from the sea;

the same winds

that brought traders and cholera.

But unlike most invasive species

that land in virgin soil,

they need careful tending

to survive.

A tropical paradise

that is really a simulacrum

of island life.

Where vacationers

on all-inclusive holidays

get drunk

eat too much

and return to northern winters

with either tell-tale tans

or badly burned.

And the man

who manicures the sand

returns each day

to his small inland home

and large family.

Where there's no A/C

and spotty electricity,

and although there's running water

it's unsafe to drink.

The tourist dollars

he depends on.

And a tropical homeland

that once flourished with diversity,

but has now been reduced

to sanitized beaches

imported food.

Where the shore

is off-limits

to fishermen and crabbers,

and the garbage

is dumped out at sea

but not far enough to matter.

This actually came out of considering the ethics of a beach vacation in a place like Cuba: where you know the tourist dollars are essential for people's livelihoods, but where we also conveniently ignore that it's a repressive police state. But since I prefer to avoid politics, I focused instead on culture and environment. Of course, it's important not to idealize a precolonial past, which I'm sure was a hard life. But it's also important to recognize that our idealized image of a tropical island beach is just that: a stage set, constructed to fit what we've come to expect. And that it comes at a cost: reserved for foreigner consumption; ecologically unsustainable.