Author: Marty Luster

Nearly Every Day

Nearly every day I wander about

with camera in hand (attached like some odd

prosthetic device) trying to capture

the seconds that constitute my life.

It’s as if by snapping the shutter I

assure myself that nothing will change;

the people and places I see and freeze

in time will always be here and I will always

be unseen, but still be part of the whole

of this marvelous place discovered so late.

And those who tend their shops or perfect their art;

who play with their kids and fix and serve our meals,

or prepare their boats for long hauls at sea;

and those who repair our roads, connect our phones,

keep the peace and douse our errant fires and

those who find joy on the water; all those who don’t see me

as I observe them from the docks and corners

and the doorways as I walk  the town

make their lives part of my own and allow

their moments to mingle and merge with mine.

I put my camera to my eye and for one

fraction of a second a silhouette and I are one,

sharing that brief instant, caught forever

in a world that will never change.

© Marty Luster 2012

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The first sunset music cruise of the season by the pinky schooner ARDELLE was perfect. A warm evening on the breezy harbor (and a little beyond) with music by The Everly Sisters (Sheila Shrank and Elaine Persons) along with Ron Shrank on guitar and Barry O’Brien on mandolin made for a memorable cruise. Locals as well as visitors from Texas.  Ireland and elsewhere enjoyed the warm hospitality offered by the ARDELLE’s builder  and captain Harold Burnham and his crew.

All on board offered a lusty version of Happy Birthday to the schooner THOMAS E. LANNON, also built by Harold Burnham, as she passed close abeam on ARDELLE’s port side on the LANNON’s fifteenth birthday. The Lannon acknowledged the good wishes with a full throated canon salute.

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The schooner Harvey Gamage casts off from Maritime Gloucester for another “floating classroom” lesson. Where was it when I went to school?

A June egret sees

the tide recede inch by inch

while I hurry by.

© Marty Luster 2012

A crew member at work on the schooner Harvey Gamage, docked at the newly completed Harriet Webster Pier in Harbor Loop.

From Maritime Gloucester:

   On Tuesday evening, GMG’s KIM SMITH led a tour of the gardens she designed at Willowdale Estate, followed by a screening of her film, “The Butterfly Garden at Willowdale Estate.”

The July, 2012 issue of Soundings, a national boating magazine, features Gloucester’ s fishing history in its Just Yesterday column by Steve Knauth.

Reprinted with permission from Soundings Publications LLC.

Call Me Ishmael

Not long ago I took one of my usual walks

to the waterfront .  It was not, as Ishmael says,

during a damp, drizzly November in my soul, but  in

the real chill of a drizzly Gloucester afternoon.

Despite the gloom, I found myself not alone

on the Harbor Cove boardwalk near Lat 43.

At the far end, among the traps, sat a man feeding the gulls,

looking out over the bulwarks of the nearby boats.

The scene reminded me of the rest of Ishmael’s

opening observations: there is something

that draws “almost all men in their degree  *  *  *

to cherish the same feelings towards the ocean with me.”

Those feelings compel us to choose the water’s edge

even when a snug room or restaurant  is nearby and

might  provide some comfort, say a cup of soup or tea;

but we decide to stay outside to watch and feel and wait.

We, who, unlike Ishmael, cannot “sail about a little

and see the watery parts of the world” still drift to

beach and marsh and wharves just to gaze and stare,

and let our senses absorb and our imaginations soar.

© Marty Luster 2012