Sunday, March 26, 2006

Ode to Saipan


It's very early Sunday morning here in the CNMI and the sun has just come up over the Pacific. The sky has a few puffy white clouds and the palm trees with their heads stuck up above the rest of the canopy are swaying in the gentle breeze.
Our house is situated on the "back" side of Mt. Topochau. Looking out over island and ocean I can see that we are positioned in the bowl of a natural amphitheater. The shape of the land in this spot causes the tradewinds to make a haunting "woooo" sound that I notice especially during the quiet of the night. For the longest time after moving here I would wake up with the thought that it was blizzarding outside from the sound of those winds. It still occasionally surprises me to go out early in the morning into the warm, balmy air.
There is a hymn that says "This earth was once a garden place, with all her glories common..." Saipan certainly fits that description--a beautiful garden place between the Pacific and the Philippine Sea.

Del Benson Photography

4 comments:

Selena said...

Wow, that is so beautiful! It's like paradise found! And those pictures are incredible, did you take the first two?

Anonymous said...

good pictures mum. question though, maybe it's just 'cause i am terrible at observation, and have the memory of a 90 year old with alzhiemer's, but the road in the second one, has that always been there?

ML said...

To Selena, I didn't take any of the pictures--just lifted them from the web. However, they are of Saipan. And to Mal, the middle one looks like it was taken from further up Papago Drive. I chose it because it was similar to what we see from the deck. You're right, you can't see a road from here. (Good memory!)

Anonymous said...

very lovely, ml