No man an island?

No man is an Island, entire of itself. (J.Donne)

But sometimes… don’t we wish we could be?

An island.

A lone quirk of nature, beautiful by birth, self-nourishing, a point of stable land in an ocean of uncertainty.

Like the Ile St. Honorat (Les iles de Lerins).

Or Teddy Roosevelt Island.

With long alleys

Of seclusion

Paths only faintly human

Surrounded on every side by the cleansing element

of water

Close to ‘civilization’

but not ‘of it’

Submitting to,

but withstanding, nature

A “thing of beauty”

And a sadness forever.

But, before the ice cracks

Man must realize

“Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.”