Boats by Bill Thibodeau                                                 photo by Donncha O Caoimh 

A simple, wooden, flat-bottom fishing dory

Gray, with white gunwales

A 14 footer

(If my heel to toe be close reckoning)

No name

No numbers

Lies overturned on the beach

Well up from the flood line

Tethered to a rusting eye – set

In a granite block

I walk past it most days

Since I retired and moved here

Now that there’s no one left at home

As far as I can tell

It’s been some time since it’s been

Put to good use.

Maybe the owner has also retired

Or moved on and abandoned it

Or simply passed away –

No one around here seems to know.

– Boats… what is it about boats?

Lately the only use it does get

Aside from being a stop-off perch

For shore birds

Is as a place for me to sit

And drink coffee

While I watch the tide do what it does

And fishermen do what they do

And the birds… those beautiful birds!

Oh, there was that one time

This past year

When a young, pretty photographer

Asked to take my picture – as I sat there

Looking out to sea

I just couldn’t do it…

She seemed… puzzled

But for boats to be boats – they need

To do what boats do… No?

Designer and builder – raw materials

The work and skill that goes in

Seems only fair that something

Must come out!

But here – on the beach

On it’s belly

Paint peeling in the harsh sun

Dry planks set to check and warp…

Something’s just not right

When a boat’s not a boat

Annie on the Stairs

These pine stairs

Were once an inch thick

Now - in places – they’re about half of that

How they held up –I’ll never understand

At first sight - I held my breath…

But looks can be deceiving –I knew they’d outlast me.

Annie was always after me to replace them, saying –

“But, Isn’t that what you do?”

“Yes” I’d say, then quickly change the subject

And she soon gave up her asking

How could I explain?

 They were in rough shape when we bought this place

We were so young –and this house so old

And after a hard day on the job– in the heat

The dust and the noise - learning the ropes

On icy staging - in the wind -

With the snow-covered ground so far below…

My fingers remember it all

After chores - and dinner with Annie 

I’d hit those stairs and hear those familiar creaks and groans-

Each stair had its own pitch and tone

Like old pine piano keys on a world-weary board

I’d look forward to those sounds

Because I knew we made it through another hard day.

After cleaning up – I’d lie in bed  - reading

Or thinking about the bills –or about time

And what an older version of us would be like.

Then - I’d hear Annie on those old stairs

Playing her own sweet melody

 I knew that the door would soon be opening

And that I’d be putting to bed those old cares.

The kids came and grew

And stair music went from hesitant –

To playful and raucous

And more than once to anger

Yet…at the end of the day

I’d hear Annie on the stairs…

And on those later-than-curfew-high school –nights

When they thought I couldn’t hear

It was that safe-at-home-at last-music

That cut through my frustrations-my fear

            And that’s when I knew Annie knew

The kids are since gone –the stairs

Are still holding up (mostly)

Every so often I tamp down a restless nail or two

A battle I know I’ll soon lose

            On these long winter nights

When I feel as old as this house

I know I’ll be leaving that fight for the next guy

Just as long as I hear Annie on the stairs