Vanity (In memory of Oscar Pease)

A gaff-rigged boat named Vanity
Still sails Nantucket Sound.
Her sail scrubbed clean and white
Spars varnished gleaming brown.

The last of working catboats
No others left to see.
Old Oscar drove her all his life
Dredging scallops from the sea.

Sixty years of dirt hard work
Did weather both together.
Sun and sand and scallop shells
Turned face and hands to leather.

Rusty gear scarred hull and deck
Waves beat plank and body
Till salt and age grayed Oscar’s hair
And lines and sail and cuddy.

When Oscar died museum folk
Took her from her mooring
To make her Bristol ready,
So they said, for sailing.

With wind-filled sail, burgee flying
Her bow will part the sea.
With hull and bright work shining
We’ll celebrate her pedigree.

A view of Vanity, others cried,
That leaves no place for Oscar.
And yet with tools and ardor
In a shed they turned upon her.

Rib by rib and plank by plank
They stripped her into pieces.
With all new timber nothing’s
Left of Oscar Pease’s.

No wood to touch that Oscar touched
No scars of life’s work done.
Today a new boat sails the Sound.
Old Oscar’s Vanity is gone.

With all her bright work shining
All scars of life’s work gone
A model sails Nantucket Sound.
Old Oscar’s Vanity is gone.

— Roger Kessel