Take This Poem

Take this poem. No. Really

take it. It belongs to you.

Like anything you read.

It belongs. Like Hawaii’s

swaying palms, weighted

coconuts, rungs tying

the trunk of the tree. All.

Yours for free.

What did you think

your first grade teacher

was giving to you? Letters,

words, a dog with spots,

Here’s what I love most about my town: its edges. In three directions, Vineyard Haven ends abruptly, as a town should, surrendering, gracefully and completely, to farms and fields and watery expanses of harbor and salt ponds. Within minutes, you can leave town behind and be lost on a woody trail, eye to eye with a ewe or out on the whitecaps with a seagull. Because of these edges and what lies beyond them, it smells good here. The breezes that blow through my kitchen window mostly carry briny scents, tangy with ocean.

The Most Valuable Things

World and national affairs have moved a little closer to the Island these days. The state of the country is affecting everyone, rich and poor, young and old. And all hopes are now pinned on President Obama as he navigates a minefield of global and domestic problems so enormous, so beyond the grasp of everyday life that ordinary citizens can only sit back and read and watch in awe and wonder — and more than a little trepidation.

But happily the news is not all bad.

O n Saturday, Feb. 14, we set out in the morning from Chilmark for a shop in town and a Valentine’s Day drive. It was a sunny day though terribly cold and strangely still back in Vineyard Haven on this long winter weekend to mark Presidents’ Day — a great opportunity for Islanders to escape to mainland shops, northern ski slopes, or Bahamian bliss. After a quick grocery shop, my husband Peter and I left town behind and drove past the frozen quiet MV Shipyard, the windswept buildings of the Packer Company, and out along the causeway toward Oak Bluffs.