A Christmas gift from our friend Valentina Gentili

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, famous for running the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, wrote this poem in the 1950s and published it in his book: A Coney Island of the Mind, Poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A New Directions Book, Copyright 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It is a brilliant work, and one we should think about during the pre-Christmas hustle and bustle...

CHRIST CLIMBED DOWN

Christ climbed down from His bare Tree this year
and ran away
to wherethere were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars
Christ climbed downfrom His bare Tree this year
and ran away
to wherethere were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas treesand no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down from His bare Tree this year
and ran away
to where no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck creches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down from His bare Tree this year
and ran away to where no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit
and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagen sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
and German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
from Saks Fifth Avenue
for everybody's imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down from His bare Treethis year
and ran away
to where no Bing Crosby carollers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down from His bare Tree this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary's womb again
where in the darkest nightof everybody's anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossiblyImmaculate Reconception
the very craziest of Second Comings

A VERY MERRY CHRITMAS TO ALL,
Brian & Emmy

The Journey

After many months of preparation and lots of work, lots of work did I tell you lots of work? We finally set sail at 7AM 13 December 2008. George( is staying at our house) came by to get his coffee, his final briefing on Estancia Green Cay and help us cast off , which we did promptly. As we were heading out we see this person running down the dock Ms. Jill got up really early and was there at 7:02! She threw a bag of fresh greens from her garden at us and wished us Bon Voyage.


We are off!


The sails went up smoothly off of Green Cay Island the wind just grabbed us we are on our Journey. Great passage throughout the day, then around 2 PM Brian saw what at first he thought were scuba divers on a boat, waving us away from them. A second look and he realized there was no dive flag up, we got the binoculars out. Two guys standing on what looked like a jet ski, waving theri life vests madly!Soooo…we altered course and prepared to scrutinize the guys. We were about ten miles from Culebra, and thought perhaps they had run out of gas or broken down, but wanted to be careful nonetheless. As we got closer, it became clear the they were standing on a capsized powerboat (a Grady White 25’ outboard fishing boat). We circled and spoke to the guys, offering to take them to Culebra. We then maneuvered close alongside, they swam over and we brought them aboard. They had left St. Thomas early that morning and been bottom fishing off Sail Rock, when they decided the weigh anchor and move to another spot. Evidently there was a mixup and the anchor line got caught in the prop, and the boat swung around so the stern was pointing right into the wind and waves, and a couple big waves swamped the boat almost immediately, and then it rolled over. Anyway, we radioed the Coast Guard, who really weren’t much help at all, saying to just drop them off in Culebra??? When we got to Culebra we called Customs & Immigration (the guys said they were green card holders, but both said they’d lost their ID in the boat), they said no one was allowed to leave the boat until we were given specific clearance, which took about an hour. We then took the guys to the police station on Culebra under a rain storm, where they were given showers, clothes, food and a place to stay overnight. Buddies of theirs came over the next day and picked them up. And so ends the story of our first rescue at sea!

This was just the first day! Showers, no dinner for Emmy, and bed whew, a great day at sea.