bonjour de Tahiti

Friends,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindmob/sets/625529/

This letter begins by the light of the Tahitian moon. Though she looks
the same as yours, the sea of stars through which she sails is all new
to me. In the South Seas, the Southern Cross stands in for the North
Star as the heavenly compass -- how fitting for these islands
colonized by mean bearing the crucifix. To this day, Tahiti and her
islands are French colonies and francais is the national language,
though most polynesians also speak Tahitian.

I'm anchored a quarter mile offshore and "civilization" is painted all
across the night island landscape in sodium streetlamps, spinning
carnival colors and the sound of Harley Davidson. Out to sea, the roar
of breakers on the barrier reef is never-ending, and I watch the
tenuous white line of surf draw and erase the horizon over and over.
Onshore, I can tell what year it is by counting the lights. Out there
-- time never started.

The mountains of Tahiti are conspicuously dark above the city glow. If
I had arrived three hundred years ago, like some white guy did, I
would have likely seen fires burning up there between the peaks. Back
then, the polynesians populated and cultivated the rainforested inner
valleys. Then white guys arrived en masse with Western ideas, clothes
and junk. Centuries go by and the fires flow downhill to the ship
harbor and its obligatory city, only now the flames don't flicker, and
the jungle is concrete. Leaving the mountains to dream the old dreams
-- the ones we don't remember when we wake up.

Dan

Check out my recent pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mindmob/sets/625529/

--
+ Daniel Steinbock
+
+ www.sonic.net/~daniel