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A Matter of Perspective by Donald L. Capone

January 4, 2014

When dragonflies see us
through compound eyes
do we shimmer in the light?
Are we filled with grace
with beauty and delight?
Does our aspect bring them joy?
Do they gaze with wonder at our sight?
Do dragonflies at night
sing songs of us
before they sleep?
Do they dream of beauty and of light?
Are we also objects of delight
or just
     too big to eat
                 and so
                          irrelevant? 

Kilaguni - in dad's words

January 4, 2014

Dad always told us he hoped his ashes could be spread near his favorite safari spot in Tsavo – I just came across an email from 2007 where he talks about this spot: "Well, here I am again, sitting at what is probably my favorite place in all the world — at least my favorite spot in Kenya.  This is where it all began — so long ago — in 1966 when I first walked through the lodge entrance and out on the veranda to see what is still one of the most stunning sights in all of Africa — the Kilaguni waterhole.  Just on the right, as you look out over the waterhole are the rounded peaks and dimpled craters of the Chyulu Hills displaying a wonderful range of color — looking as if they might have been painted with a pastel pallet.  And then just a bit to the left, rising up from the plain is Kilimanjaro, huge and perfect, just like all the pictures you have ever seen of Africa's most famous mountain.  And then, there's the waterhole — always busy with the most wonderful variety of wildlife.  Just now it is a bit slow but there is an impala buck drinking and a warthog family is just leaving along with the remnants of a troop of baboons.  And completing the picture are three giraffe ambling slowly across the scene.  Off in the distance at the edge of the clearing is a small herd of zebra and soon there will be others…probably elephant and maybe buffalo in herds of hundreds.  I have seen and heard lions roaring as they lay near the water, and was lucky enough, once, to have a leopard casually stroll across right in front of the veranda at dinnertime.  Kilaguni was the first game lodge built in any of Kenya's national parks in 1962 and it is still the best — the most special place — I hope it will always be here.  It has survived two fires — I survived the second one along with it…That first visit to Tsavo in 1966 certainly changed my life — and I guess that of everyone else I infected with my passion for Kenya, what the French during colonial times called the "mal d'Afrique", a most serious and apparently incurable obsession with the dark continent.  Anyone who is unable to understand that ailment has only to see this magical place and they will know."

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