Oh Captain!

I've got the month of January off and the kids are with their mother for the holidays so I'm thinking of hitting the road. I suppose I could have cancelled the holidays when the present arrangements fell into place. But I really need the time. The strain has shown. There's some forests south of Perth in Western Australia I have never been to. Once again, card in hand, master of your own destiny. Never happier than on the move.

Here's a poem I stuck up on my day desk, I'm not sure why.

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

O Captain! My Captain!

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!
5
O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.


O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
10
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,
15
You’ve fallen cold and dead.


My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.


IRAQ WATCH:

By ROBERT H. REID Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq Dec 9, 2005 — A suicide bomber detonated explosives Thursday inside a packed bus bound for a southern Shiite city, killing 32 people and wounding 44, police said. The blast pushed the three-day death toll from suicide attacks in the capital to at least 75.
Meanwhile, a statement posted on the Internet in the name of the Islamic Army in Iraq claimed to have killed an American hostage. The statement did not name him or provide photos, but the group earlier identified its captive as Ronald Alan Schulz and threatened to kill him unless all prisoners in Iraq were released.