The Mariner

My father had a radio just like this one when I was little.
Laying in bed at night I could hear the crackling in the attic.
Up and down the dial and across the oceans.
Far away tinny voices coming through the static.
I laid awake imagining traveling to find them. Sailing the night away.

And now I live in a log cabin alongside the Little Conewago Creek.
With a treetop studio that is overrun with treasures from my travels.

Remembering a passage from Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House.
Wherein she writes about a stifling hot attic sewing room
that the professor was using as an office
and a refuge from his troubled family life.
And how she saw it’s only tiny window as if it were one of those thickly leaded glass windows in a 17th century Dutch painting.
Which, from within the close heavy and dark interior, was thrown open to a brilliant blue sky and
freshening sea air and the tops of the masts of the ships in port
and all the stories they had to offer.

Nostalgic for the night radio
and its promise of mystery and adventure
the studio windows are open wide
to the bright morning sky
and all the creatures great and small
who are setting sail on our little creek.
Safe passage all.