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September 19, 2012 09:01
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At the Fishhouses
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At the Fishhouses | |
by Elizabeth Bishop (1948) | |
Although it is a cold evening, | |
down by one of the fishhouses | |
an old man sits netting, | |
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible, | |
a dark purple-brown, | |
and his shuttle worn and polished. | |
The air smells so strong of codfish | |
it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water. | |
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs | |
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up | |
to storerooms in the gables | |
for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on. | |
All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea, | |
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over, | |
is opaque, but the silver of the benches, | |
the lobster pots, and masts, scattered | |
among the wild jagged rocks, | |
is of an apparent translucence | |
like the small old buildings with an emerald moss | |
growing on their shoreward walls. | |
The big fish tubs are completely lined | |
with layers of beautiful herring scales | |
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered | |
with creamy iridescent coats of mail, | |
with small iridescent flies crawling on them. | |
Up on the little slope behind the houses, | |
set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass, | |
is an ancient wooden capstan, | |
cracked, with two long bleached handles | |
and some melancholy stains, like dried blood, | |
where the ironwork has rusted. | |
The old man accepts a Lucky Strike. | |
He was a friend of my grandfather. | |
We talk of the decline in the population | |
and of codfish and herring | |
while he waits for a herring boat to come in. | |
There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb. | |
He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty, | |
from unnumbered fish with that black old knife, | |
the blade of which is almost worn away. | |
Down at the water's edge, at the place | |
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp | |
descending into the water, thin silver | |
tree trunks are laid horizontally | |
across the gray stones, down and down | |
at intervals of four or five feet. | |
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, | |
element bearable to no mortal, | |
to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly | |
I have seen here evening after evening. | |
He was curious about me. He was interested in music; | |
like me a believer in total immersion, | |
so I used to sing him Baptist hymns. | |
I also sang "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." | |
He stood up in the water and regarded me | |
steadily, moving his head a little. | |
Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge | |
almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug | |
as if it were against his better judgment. | |
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, | |
the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us, | |
the dignified tall firs begin. | |
Bluish, associating with their shadows, | |
a million Christmas trees stand | |
waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended | |
above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones. | |
I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same, | |
slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones, | |
icily free above the stones, | |
above the stones and then the world. | |
If you should dip your hand in, | |
your wrist would ache immediately, | |
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn | |
as if the water were a transmutation of fire | |
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame. | |
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter, | |
then briny, then surely burn your tongue. | |
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: | |
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free, | |
drawn from the cold hard mouth | |
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts | |
forever, flowing and drawn, and since | |
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown. |
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