The Panama Canal, 2006 (The Big Ditch) A Poem with Commentary

[Could 2006: Advance]: Right after going to the Panama Canal, to see its worth, on the globe stage, seeing it 4 occasions in 4 days, from the locks to the Bridge of Americas, to the lakes, and so on; spending hours every day at the locks, and islands thereabouts, and speaking to the Panamanians. I wrote the Right after poem beneath, at the canal.

I was told this was the eighth wonder of the globe, but then when I was in Haiti, in 1986, likewise I was told, their Citadel was the 8th Wonder of the planet. I have traveled the globe more than, and maybe we have nine wonders of the globe, the Panama becoming maybe quantity 1 to three, and the Citadel quantity nine, and we'd have to take 1 other wonder and place it into the missing category; the Panama Canal is actually in a class of its personal.

A wonder of the planet it is

Equal to 6000-plus, war ships

Six pyramids by the Gaza strip.

With all its tunnels, and locks,

Dams, lakes, fifty-1 miles of it;

Buildings, mess halls, bridges--

Structures and much more structures;

Spillways and a lot cartage;

Bulldozers, trains--ten-years of it,

Building:

Excavations, constructions--:

Like digging a huge ditch, via

Mountains, valleys, lakes--all

All I say, all immense, immense

With tons of cement and steel,

Among silt and mud; and two

Oceans In between: obstacles

One particular Following yet another--yellow fever.

The Suez Canal is but a glimpse

Of this immense job, in Panama;

Unequal in each way, to its grandeur.

Afterwards: In building the canal, it took, ten years (by the Americans; the French, numerous); and price $675-million dollars Amongst France and America; 62,000-workers worked at any 1 time on the web site (42,000 globe die from illness, accidents, est.); the website becoming 51-miles extended, and ten miles wide. There have been 3 locks to build, a handful of dams, a lake or two, a mountain to blow up, and make a passageway via. The French sold the rights to build the canal to America for $40-million dollars, Immediately after they had failed in its completion, at a price of $300-million. Currently that expense tag would be more than 7-billion dollars. It took 1600-hundred pounds of gold to spend the performs every month; or 24-tons of Silver. They had to make 5 million loafs of bread, one hundred,000 pounds of cheese, 9-million pounds of meat, and 300,000 chickens every single year to feed the hungry operates. In addition, they had to use 150,000-gallions of mosquito oil. Its construction matter is equal to 5 Suez Canals. The material taken out of the Panama Canal would be equal to six huge -pyramids in Egypt. It was an immense job, probably the most perplexed due to the fact the landing on the moon; in all the history of mankind.

Note: Written in Panama, at the Canal, 5/24/06; #1360.

See Dennis' internet web-site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com