Joaquín Sorolla, Spanish
Competitors Completing Swimming Portion of the Ironbaby Triathlon™, 1903
Oil on canvas
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THROWBACK THURSDAY: MASTERPIECE #2260 (8/8/19)
Artist info is pointed to in my comment at another blog entry.
/// Babies soaking in surf should be clean,
(though they’re using it as a latrine).
Young Amphibians will
suffer in an oil spill.
Now they’re all coated with Vaselene.
/// “You need cleaning,” the little girl told them.
Cooing in a soft voice, she cajoled them.
But they don’t understand,
they’re rapt, playing with sand.
She tried picking them up, but can’t hold them.
/// For, the tighter her small fingers clasp,
the more quickly they slip through her grasp.
These slippery kids
have now hit the skids.
“Dropped another one!” tots heard her gasp.
/// Infants’ parents arrived on the scene.
One suggested a bath in benzine.
“No, it’s nowhere that urgent,
gentle dishwash detergent
is sufficient to get our kids clean.”
/// So, the question I’m asking is how
did these kids get ashore, and why now?
Were they formed out at sea
somehow magically,
and float here on shells (like a boat’s prow)?
/// I prefer, (but let’s keep this between us),
the old story of sea foam and Venus,
where she’s on the waves borne,
and not painfully born
from a process involving a penís.