Searching for a Christ, on an island of sugar and alcohol

[Tinsel_the_Elf]

I have an odd request, I posted a version of this on B77, and am posting this here too for maximum exposure and the hope of an off-chance that someone may be able to help me.

This summer I visited the Dominican Republic, and while there my friends and I went to the Cathedral (the oldest in the Americas) in the Colonial district of the capital, Santo Domingo.

The cathedral is a beautfiul and simple mix of Gothic, Renaissance, and Spanish Colonial styles, constructed out of coral stone. There are thirteen or fourteen side chapels, and in one of them I was particularly struck by a 16th cent. (I think) statue of Christ being whipped at the pillar.

I write poetry, and that statue came up in a poem that I was started working on the other day. I'd really like to see a photo of it, since I'm just working on memory and hastily jotted down notes, but the problem is, neither I nor any of my friends who were with me seem to have a picture of it. I've done Yahoo and Google internet searches, but I haven't had any luck.

So my hope is, that perhaps someone here has also visited that Cathedral, and may have a snapshot of that image that they could email or post here. I'd obviously be very, very grateful.

While on the subject of the DR, and beauty (both marred and unmarred), here is an excerpt of a famous and long poem by the Dominican poet Pedro Mir (unfortunately I can't seem to preserve the unique spacing of some of the lines--when I preview this post all the lines get flushed left . In the printed book I have certain clauses are separated for effect and spread wide across the page):

THERE IS A COUNTRY IN THE WORLD
a poem, sad on more than one occasion

There is
a country in the world
situated
right in the sun's path.
A native of the night.
Situated
in an improbable archipelago
of sugar and alcohol.
Simply
light,
like a bat's wing
leaning on the breeze.
Simply
bright,
like the trace of a kiss on an elderly
maiden,
or daylight on the roof tiles.
Simply
fruitful. Fluvial. And material. And yet
simply torrid, abused and kicked
like a young girl's hips.
Simply sad and oppressed.
Sincerely wild and uninhabited....

[truehobbit]

Tinsel, I can't help you on the cathedral, but in order to preserve some spacing, there are two options:

You can put dashes or so in front of the lines, and colour them white (though that only makes them invisible on a white background, which not everybody uses - mine is blueish, for example.)

There is
---------------------a country in the world
---------------- situated
-------------- right in the sun's path.
------------------------ A native of the night.
--------------- Situated
in an improbable archipelago
of sugar and alcohol


So, the other option is to use the code tags, which preserve everything as written:

Code: Select all

There is 
                a country in the world 
         situated 
            right in the sun's path. 
    A native of the night. 
         Situated 
           in an improbable archipelago 
  of sugar and alcohol.