Closer!
Chasing the dory towed by the Port Clyde dragger,
With 12-year old Shannon Stuart on her stern,
The photographer crouches low in the bow
Of the borrowed Aquasport
To record the day’s translucent events,
Which began with hapless penned sheep
In the Post family’s Metinic Island corral,
And imprinted in our feverish minds
By the island lobsterman’s deadpanned line,
“Sheep, yup, one cut below a stone,”
As we proceed to load, one-by-one, 18 shorn sheep
Now shitting a wild green slurry underfoot in the dory
To begin the traverse across Penobscot Bay
For use as cheap lawnmowers
On the newly created Allen Island pastures.
With his partner temporarily at the helm,
The photographer’s sole intention is to get the shot,
f-8 and be there, they say, as he composes the scene
To capture the entirety of this universe in a frame.
“Closer,” he instructs; “Closer!” again he shouts,
And “Closer!!” yet again as the bow of the Aquasport
Rises up over the stern wave of the dory
And cracks her a good one, terrifying the seasick sheep silly.
He did not think the image particularly distinguished,
But what did he know then
Of how that shot would change his life – or mine?
by Philip Conkling
The poem and a very small print of Pentecost are available as a pair thru Ralston Gallery; please inquire if interested.
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