Welcome to my spot on the map
My dot in the water
Martha’s Vineyard
Could have been called
Bartholomew’s Haven
Or Mayhew’s End-of-the-Rainbow
Or any number of names
Considering the exaltation of explorers
Who claim history here

It was and still is Moshup’s island
Once it was also Obadiah’s island
Ezekiel’s island
Abigail’s island
Mercy’s island
These days it’s Skip’s island
Bucky’s island
Megan’s island
Jessica’s island

People born here don’t know
What they have until they leave
Eventually many make the trip back
A journey going on for generations
Strangers who come here from there
Eventually, if not instantly, appreciate
The return of the native

An island by definition has edges
Within those edges if you are blessed
You can grow a garden of determination
A gentrified Eden
A saving grace
Martha’s Vineyard is fruitful
A multiplier of nourishment

I’m a stranger here myself
A washashore
A permanent tourist
A thankful pilgrim who knows progress is never over
Until you cross over to a higher island

They come here for many reasons,
Many rationales, many whims
When I say they I mean we, don’t I?
We are here to take time to a new meaning
To breathe deeply, to live lively,
To merge with the environment,
To take note of who we are, who we
are not

Here we learn to live in peaceful coexistence
Among a murder of crows, a siege of herons,
A rafter of turkeys, a congregation of plovers,
Not to mention a drift of fishermen
A rage of maidens, an invasion of vacationers,
A gaggle of gawkers

Where sailing is truly a craft
Where fishing is a creative art form
Where every third person is an artist of some kind
You can’t throw a stone without hitting a poet
And every other third person
Sells real estate, teaches yoga or both

Where stress evaporates
Where tension dissipates
Where a dinner party rarely turns into a Donner party
Where every Lenny, Lennette and Leonardo
Can find and awaken their dormant da Vincis
Without realizing they are on a mission
Many seek and fold into a new religion
And worship at the altar of alteration

Martha’s Vineyard is fruitful
A paradise of possibility
A den of mothers and fathers of reinvention

The lobsterman next door has a doctorate in psychology
Our carpenter carved his first path into adulthood as a cop
Our plumber welds anachronistic hardware into sculpture
The photographer on the corner once developed dental scenes

Wouldn’t surprise me to learn
Our electrician once in drag played Scarlet O’Hara
In an off-off-Broadway production
He certainly acts as if tomorrow is
another day

Throughout the four seasons we collect
and recollect
In tranquility imitations of immortality
As the air chills, before going to hibernate in Scottsdale
Birders search for the phoenix rising
inside themselves

Here you can turn daydreams into versions of reality
You can turn the soft sweet sea air into
reviving oxygen
You can turn the greenery into nutrition for your soul
Martha’s Vineyard is fruitful
But as yet you still can’t turn its grapes
into a fine wine

Where wishful thinking can become a
cash crop
Where the call of the mild lures every kind of would-be
Where you can sail around your mind
Trying each and every port and portal

Hoist the jib and flap the halyard
Sail beyond the Slocum hokum
Into the permanent waves of unheeded forecasts
Where dreamboats break fast from their moorings
Where every fo’c’s’le is wider than a foxhole
And beyond the yardarms it’s yar all day

Island living – two words in wedded bliss
Essences of a small town united
By the waters surrounding it
I could be sailing to Byzantium
But why would I ever want to leave
A thinking man’s Mayberry