Rolled like a Captain’s scrolled telescope
Our man Charles seeks to correct a old map he scaled
back before the Narrows enlarged.
Old man Nott he was named now, for fame
and hard wine drove him into his bones
so that when he gazed out with his sextant
and needle, he appeared a gaunt bird,
feathers hallowed by mange and a host of worms.
A game bird at the end of a very long stretch
of hunting and gathering and flying and avoiding
and now come down to the marsh beyond
the oyster shacks, that appear in the distance
as barnacles against a misty shell sky.
Though old he is he knows the way out
is a straight shot. Up the channel to the farm
where beds and fires blaze. Sun goes down slow
this spring afternoon, and air claps with gunpowder
thunder. At night he opens the window’s latch
letting breeze and voices to balloon the air.
If he listens hard with his old man ears there comes
the joy of sharing a catch, voices from the shacks
reaching out to him. Mapping the earth as we understand it
is one skill he muses, but to map the ranges
of the human heart takes more than a wise eye,
a steady hand, a boat and a compass to steer by.
