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Half-sun sinks into the sea,
disappearing, not into water
or air or human concern,
but into free space that
does not move at all.
It’s Earth and us and our
concerns that turn—our
world that burns well past
surety of light. Revolution
and rotation brings sun
to where it is, visible or
invisible, while we claim
the sun is rising, setting.
Ours a too easy forgetting.
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I sail past Schoodic, past Great Wass,
further downeast by myself
all the way to Cutler. There I
buy the first house I see for sale
and settle in with barest
of possessions. One day soon
after, a middle-aged
man with short hair but not
overly short, upon hearing
I’d moved there, says to me:
“Every able-bodied man here
is pretty much a lobsterman.
Are you intendin’ to go out
lobsterin’?” I pause before I reply:
“I am setting out traps of sorts.
I am trying for poems. Yes, I
came here to be a poet, and I’ll
try different bait and different
coves to see what I can catch.
You can appreciate the hard life
it entails: out in all weathers,
up early, hand to painted buoys.”
He said back: “That’s your quarry,
eh? Ain’t fished out? Get a good
catch, do ya?” I smiled and said,
“I hope to. I came here to what
others call God-forsaken to get
what divinity sends me, for I
think it’s God-awakened here
rather than God-forsaken.”
“Right you are,” he said, “right
you are. And that ain’t a bad way
to make a livin’, off life itself.
It ain’t a hard life if you
live it honestly. True for lobsters,
true for us.” The twinkle in our eyes
met, and I said we’d meet again.
He said: “I wonder if your traps
and lobsters are as heavy as mine?”
and I tossed back to him: “They are
exceedingly light, but the getting
to them is where the work is!”
He chuckled, dropped his head,
and gave a half wave to me as he
turned and went his way.
I, as well, went mine.
Recollections of a Rodeo Rider
Almost gored
By the bull that was the fiercest
I now sit on the fence
And watch the clown spin and spin
The problem, running from it as if from kin.
Never bored,
I’ve ridden broncos, bulls, and once
The horns of a dilemma
Which I rode way past the bell,
But hell, ridin’ ain’t no big deal,
It’s the getting’ off clean that’s the trouble.
On these boards
I watch in remembrance
Of the next bull penned tight with rider,
Like an oversize veal calf
Hemmed in from side to side.
I’ve seen it all—the falls, the gorings, the
Thrashing dreams, the clothes saturated with dirt,
The hurt, the bright lights, the victory rides—
They buck my memory still,
The dizzying spins, the socket dislocations,
The sweaty smell of hides,
On summer nights and practice dawns,
I’ve stayed up and taken spills.
Andrew Porter is a philosopher and poet who has written on New England and universal themes for four decades. He has been published in The Philosopher journal, The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics (Hodder Education 2006), and philosophical-investigations.org. He lives in Lexington, Massachusetts in the United States.