The Pleasures of Tarzan

There’s a scene (no more than a minute or two I suppose)

Near the beginning of the otherwise unexceptional

Tarzan’s Peril.

It comes after some generic footage

Shot in Africa,

(You know the sort of thing)

Warriors, animals, la de da. 

Anyway,

All of a sudden

There he is,

Lex Barker,

As sweet a Tarzan as ever shone from

The silver screen,

Bounding out of the foliage,

Rhapsodic in his beauty,

Smiling like the day,

Aflame with his sunlight.

And what does he do?

As if exhausted by his own beauty,

He falls by a mirroring brook and

Stares,

Delighted by the reflection he sees;

This jungle narcissus 

Subdued

By his own 

Loveliness. 

As we all are.

But how did this scene get there,

Within such pedestrian matter,

This moment of rapt

Self-awareness,

This Tarzan loving himself

In the too-clear

Waters of a Hollywood jungle stream?

Not even the scene-stealing Cheeta,

Try as she might,

Dares to disturb the surface of this

Momentarily reflective pool.