Quitsa Strider

2003

40" X 20"

Oil on Panel

SOLD

It has been a stormy October.
Days of dreary rain and a bitter cold wind.
Any port would do
but the Home Port is closed.
Waited all week for a break to take some photos of the boats left in the harbor.
Only the sturdiest vessels have been left to weather out these nasty autumn gales.

This morning I gave in to the soggy muses.
Donned my slicker and last year’s cap from Pooles.
Gulliver jumped in the truck with me and we headed over to Menemsha.
A couple of steaming coffee cups
in the hands of the few who had gathered at the harbormaster’s shack.
A car or two in the lot.
One boat getting under way.
The light of another heading out toward the horizon.

Gully and I were leaning against the truck
studying the way the rain soaked boulders on the quay
had darkened to the deep earthtones from whence they came.
Kind of like my aura had been doing lately.

Out of the corner,
out of the mist,
a lone fisherman made his way slowly along the path.
The air was heavy with the souls of sailors.
And I swear,
in the distance,
I could hear Stan Rogers offering up a sea faring lament.