! ! To Elizabeth Bishop Poem by Michael Shepherd

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.