Old Timer

Old Timer

The way he used to do is this: he’d get

                his old clam roll ready and his hoe

                and he’d read the tide times

                they’d published and he’d add

                an hour because that’s what

                you’re supposed to do and when

                he set out just as he’d planned

                his boots were patched so

                they didn’t bring on no more

                water.  And when he got there

                he was the first one and he parked

                to where he didn’t have to

                drive so far and he sat and watched

                the gulls and sometimes a crow

                (though given the talk he’d always

                known and grown up with about crows,

                and though he wasn’t a particular

                superstitious sort) he’d look for

                two and squint sometimes

                and let the blur bring on more

                than one and even though he

                never cheated more than once

                or twice in his life he let this one

                go by because you know,

                it’s a single black crow, that’s like

                going into the woods in November

                with one shot in your rifle and he’d known

                only one guy to have done that

                and don’t you know how that ended—

                and didn’t his kid find him didn’t he?

                struck up against a rock and a weeping

                blue spruce because that shot was

                some close, it's a damn shame ain't it
                the old-timer said,
                but shit, back to the two

                crows, and how he’s too old now to row

                out of some coves to go onto the flats

                that spit and suck and cling,

                muck to rubber.  It’s just a peck

                maybe two though he’s got enough

                daylight to bend into the beach and dig

                again and again like he used to

                and hauling back the fork on the hoe

                to the little neck shells sitting

                like peace treaties in the wet and damn

                sometimes if it ain't like some high

                mucky-muck geo-            geo-       ge-

                ol-o-gist he said slow when he was a boy

                because he liked rocks and stones

                and old things, but stones in particular

                and one time clamming he found

                something he thought might make him

                and he stashed it deep in the peck

                he’d already dug and all the tide

                while he pulled the mud he shoveled

                his way out of this little town and into

                a school and a different kind

                of future.  And didn’t he haul it all up

                the beach that morning, and see the rope

                his forearms had become huffing up

                the beach this way and not near out

                of breath, the heap of grey grain, the way

                he heard them all breathe all those clams
                and he’d covered

                them with seaweed and didn’t see,

                against the rise of grass where the tide

                will meet the shore later, and it’s coming

                fast, he’d dug right up to slack, boy

                you got your license on  you? I been

                sitting here—you got—come on boy—

                no? go on then—you’ll have to dump

                ‘em, go on—and so he did he had to

                in the grass there at his feet and nothing

                of the rock he’d come back to try

                to find later that day against it all             

                and the gull shit too and the warden

                was saying only a warning this time

                next time watch the signs boy you know

                how to read I see you in school

                come on, this beach’s posted, let’s

                go on home you must be cold I got

                a sip of whisky don’t tell nobody, let’s

                get going, the tide’s coming in and do you

                feel that wind coming down
                from the north wouldn't you say?