Date: December 2004

Location: Roatan Island, Honduras

We spent Christmas of 2003 on the island of Roatan. We rented a couple of cottages. Roatan is off the coast of Honduras. It is famous for its scuba diving. Devin got his scuba diving license there. As you can see by the above picture, he was dedicating himself to his lessons.

Honduras is a tough country. Children are kidnapped and beaten up regularly. Roatan Island is split into two sections, one English and developed to a certain extent. The other half is Spanish and totally undeveloped. People travel by public transportation, or whatever other means they have to get to work, and then home. We gave a lift to a bunch of people and gained some insight into their life style.

The poem below was written with this in mind.

Roatan

waiting for the bus
waiting for anyone to stop
waiting for a ride to town
waiting all the time

looking for the bus
looking for anyone to stop
looking for a ride to town
looking all the time

how to pay the bills
how to get to work
how to put food on the table
how to survive

no bus in sight
no cars are stopping
no time to wait
no work in sight

time is standing still
time is fleeting by
time is not important
time is all we have

how long we wait
how we hope despair think
how to get to work
how to get home

pickup stops
clamber in the back
huddle in the cold
hang on for dear life

bang on the roof
pickup stops
clamber out
go to work

waiting for the bus
waiting for anyone to stop
waiting for a ride to town
waiting all the time

looking for the bus
looking for anyone to stop
looking for a ride to town
looking all the time

how to get home
how to pay the bills
how to put food on the table
how to survive

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Poem by Billy Collins, poet laureate

Dharma

The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she
would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

End

My thanks to all.