The Ocean Is Closed for the Season

The ocean is closed for the season.
Hauled and stripped, her booms unshipped,
our playmate sits gathering snow,
her charts by the fire laid out to dry,
her main and mizzen, checked for wear,
to be stowed in the loft, not to mildew.

Rogue's Roost, Bald Rock, East Ironbound, the Ledges,
noteworthy anchorages, islands in the offing, hazards to avoid,
names in flying spray on the wind written large,
an expanse to the landbound no more tactile than a star,
if stars can be seen where they are. And now here we are,
returned to the heathen, with the ocean closed for the season.

Now the armored storms promenade, with the clear days
the coldest of all. More than bulletproof, the space
between Prospect and Betty’s, only three miles out, where autumn saw
a silver anniversary, champagne and cake and more, for the children
kites, kayaks, cranberry-picking, a trip to the lighthouse on the outer shore
(old Algiers laid out and snoring till the tide reached his privates).

And now Betty’s through the kitchen window is our contemplation.
Closed? The lobsterman says no, his red and green lamps in the grey dawn
glowing as he leaves the harbour, swallowed outside by the seas and the snow.
And now the amateur sailor concurs. Children, dinners, village issues intervene,
our own work if we have any, and as the frost flowers mask the pane,
love ever beckoning, an Atlantic within, without beginning or end.

Jim Lindsey
2 December 2002