Pool Poetic
I love that the exodus out of cities and towards the sea in August is so embedded in the Italian culture that there is a word for it: Ferragosto. It is a compound of the name of the month, agosto, and ferie, which means holiday. I’ve adopted this wonderful practice, though I come from the NY culture in which vacations are maximum 10 days away from work. My longest vacation before coming to Italy was two weeks long.
This August, I am staying in a place that has a pool, and I’ve been enjoying the cyan blue color of its base. This is the color of the sea on certain Mediterranean and Caribbean beaches, and certainly reminds me immediately of leisurely swimming, basking in the gentle ripples. I think of David Hockney and his beautiful depictions of pools.
In this design for a desktop background, I overlayed some lines from the Mary Oliver poem The Swan:
And did you feel it in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
Floating on the pool, I find myself lightly contemplating ideas, reflecting on what is important and relaxing into a sense of “everything ok-ness.”
To download
Right click or (Mac) control click on the links below and save the link. Then follow the directions in the Notes to utilize on your device.
Download for desktop / laptop here.
Download for iPad here.
Notes
How to change the background image: Mac. Windows. iPad.
Full text of Mary Oliver’s The Swan:
The Swan
Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
