! ! To Elizabeth Bishop

Although it is a cold evening, down by one of the fishhouses an old man sits netting. If this were a novel by, say, Jack London, something would be about to happen: time would pass, events move on, dramas unfold; we might see this old man again, or we might not. Instead, we share a moment outside time, share our being – the old man; Elizabeth, whose grandfather was his friend; ourselves; knowing that, the more real this moment, how frail our knowledge: historical, perhaps, yet sharper, crueller, cold as this evening, salty sharp as the encrusted herring barrels, fluid, powered, secret, as this sultry silver water lapping at the quay; here, flowing, flown.