Upstream (11 page)

I don't think I am old yet, or done with growing. But my perspective has altered—I am less hungry for the busyness of the body, more interested in the tricks of the mind. I am gaining, also, a new affection for wood that is useless, that has been tossed out, that merely exists, quietly, wherever it has ended up. Planks on the beach rippled and salt-soaked. Pieces of piling, full of the tunnels of shipworm. In the woods, fallen branches of oak, of maple, of the dear, wind-worn pines. They lie on the ground and do nothing. They are travelers on the way to oblivion.

The young man now—that carpenter we began with—places his notebook carefully beside him and rises and, as though he had just come back from some great distance, looks around. There are his tools, there is the wood; there is his unfinished task, to which, once more, he turns his attention. But life is no narrow business. On any afternoon he may hear and follow this same
rhapsody, turning from his usual labor, swimming away into the pleasures, the current of language. More power to him!

For myself, I have passed him by and have gone into the woods. Near the path, one of the tall maples has fallen. It is early spring, so the crimped maroon flowers are just emerging. Here and there slabs of the bark have exploded away in the impact of its landing. But, mostly, it lies as it stood, though not such a net for the wind as it was. What is it now? What does it signify? Not Indolence, surely, but something, all the same, that balances with Ambition.

Call it Rest. I sit on one of the branches. My idleness suits me. I am content. I have built my house. The blue butterflies, called azures, twinkle up from the secret place where they have been waiting. In their small blue dresses they float among the branches, they come close to me, one rests for a moment on my wrist. They do not recognize me as anything very different from this enfoldment of leaves, this wind-roarer, this wooden palace lying down, now, upon the earth, like anything heavy, and happy, and full of sunlight, and half
asleep.

Give me a fish, I eat for a day: teach me to fish, I eat for a lifetime.

FISHERMAN'S MOTTO

Now let my fingers and pencils and my beloved old machine with its letters and numbers fly over the sweet harbor and gaze instead into the town itself. A tiny town as towns and cities are now, but to me it held a perfect sufficiency. Front Street and Back Street. Of course they had other names, but this is town talk. One traffic light, one doctor, one drugstore. A scattering of restaurants, saloons. And the boatyards.

Most of the town lived for its fishing, a rough trade taken on, for the fish then were plenty. Many of the men were from Portugal, the islands. Not all of course, but their hardiness was noticeable. Men, and boys in small
boats that scarcely ever carried emergency gear for the men. Which meant at times the loss of both, the boat and its crew. When a boat did not return there was grieving in more than one house. Still, the next morning the boats went out, without their brothers. It felt close to nobility.

A memory: hauling the net up to the surface of the water and onto the deck was not easy work; the men had to be strong, quick, and accurate. In the morning sun, a few of the old men, retired now, would often gather together on the bench in front of the New York Store. Not one of them had all ten fingers.

Speaking of the net, which sank deeply and broadly, many a curiosity might appear along with the catch. Once, a human leg bone. Certainly in these days it would have been taken to the police station, not so in the time I am talking of, but instead it was carried to the priest at the Catholic church. Where because of an old leg wound from the war, the owner of this piece of body was identified. Missing is only missing to insurance companies, but now the insurance would be paid, if the family had such. A blessing to a whole family.

The town was full of nicknames—a few I remember: Moon, Iron Man, Jimmy Peek (in remembrance of his grandfather, who, it is said, peeked a great deal). And
then there was Flyer, owner of the boatyard. One winter, already of a great age, his shoulders stiffened into uselessness. He filled two pails with sand and water and carried them everywhere he went, the entire winter. By spring his shoulders were fine. You do not meet such people everywhere.

I don't mean to slight the women of the town. Visiting a Portuguese house often deeply snuggled among flowers, it took no more than three minutes from my knock before I would find myself sitting in front of a bowl of steaming, delicious Portuguese soup and adding my own voice to the family chatter.

_______

Provincetown has what we called Mediterranean light, which for years had brought artists to set up their easels on the shore, on the dunes, on street corners, or perhaps in their own houses. Writers came as well. No occupation was considered elite. Provincetown became the place to come not only for the light but for the friendliness that sustained all of us, or so it seemed. I meet the plumber in the hardware store, “How's your work going?” he would say. Pretty good, I'd answer, and how about you? “Pretty well,” he would say. And we would both ramble off smiling, feeling the sweetness of it.

And then the terrible change began. The great rafts of fish began to diminish. The satisfaction of a day's work also began to vanish. Overfishing, climate change, and little boats that were growing older every year were the causes. In other towns, larger boats were built to travel farther out to sea, something the Provincetown fleet could not do.

A town cannot live on dreams. The change was slow but harsh. The young men and women, boys and girls left to find work and to build another life. And the town became, not all at once but steadily, a town of pleasure. People swarmed in on weekends, and they still do. And it will no doubt go on. And there is no blame in this. The town had to find another way to live.

The tourist business was in. Late into the night the bands played. Closing hours changed, became later. There were weekend people and people who could afford a longer stay or buy a summer home. At the same time, I must say that many of the changes were important. A home for young artists and painters was established as well as a scientific center for the study of our coastal waters. But generally it became just, well, different. One could say it fast became a place to visit or live for a while, and to spend money. Not so much in which to live a life. To dance and make noise, though
I do not mean to criticize all frolic. It was just, well, different.

_______

I don't know if I am heading toward heaven or that other, dark place, but I know I have already lived in heaven for fifty years. Thank you,
Provincetown.

“Who Cometh Here?” was first published in
Appalachia Journal
.

Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint the following works:

“Upstream” from
Blue Iris: Poems and Essays
by Mary Oliver. Copyright © 2004 by Mary Oliver. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press.

“Sister Turtle,” “Building the House,” “Winter Hours,” “The Bright Eyes of Eleonora: Poe's Dream of Recapturing the Impossible,” “Swoon,” and “Some Thoughts on Whitman” from
Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems and Poems
by Mary Oliver. Copyright © 1999 by Mary Oliver. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

“Bird” from
Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays
by Mary Oliver. Copyright © 2003 by Mary Oliver. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press.

“Wordsworth's Mountain” from
Long Life: Essays and Other Writings
by Mary Oliver, copyright © 2004 by Mary Oliver. Reprinted by permission of Da Capo Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, a division of PBG Publishing, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

“My Friend Walt Whitman,” “Staying Alive,” “Owls,” “The Ponds,” “Of Power and Time,” and “Blue Pastures” from
Blue Pastures
by Mary Oliver. Copyright © 1995 by Mary Oliver. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

“Ropes” from
Dog Songs
by Mary Oliver (Penguin Press). Copyright © 2013 by Mary Oliver. Used by permission of Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency.

“Emerson: An Introduction” by Mary Oliver, copyright © 2000 by Mary Oliver; from
The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
by Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Brooks Atkinson. Used by permission of Modern Library, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

*
All quotations are taken from
The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
(New York: Modern Library, 1992).

*
All italics in quotations are mine.

*
Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays
(New York: Library of America, 1995), p. 742.

*
From
The Varieties of Religious Experience,
in
William James: Writings, 1902–1910
(New York: Library of America, 1987). The particular phrases quoted can be found on pp. 343–44.

*
Ibid., p. 357.

*
The number of pages devoted to this poem in
Walt Whitman: Complete Poetry and Collected Prose
(New York: Library of America, 1982).

*
Poem lengths are taken from the volume previously cited.

*
Probably
Parasteatoda tepidariorum.