Laguna Beach Poem by Lucius Furius

Lounging in the dry warmth of the sun,
overcome by the beauty of the green cliffs
rising above the hypnotic blue water....

I think of Mann's The Magic Mountain,
obsession with the physical
(not, in this case, disease, of course,
but the sensual) :

skin glowing in the year-round sun;
ripe fruit
falling into one's hand;
air, rich with the smell of flowers....

Wouldn't such pleasure
inevitably dull the mind's keen edge?

Wouldn't Eden's ease
subvert all great endeavor?