Page 155 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

Dark Matter: Women Witnessing - December, 2015 Issue #3 - EXTINCTION / DEVOTION

inaccessible. I’m intrigued with another possibility: walking the outline of the Bay watershed, an

area of about 64,000 miles, in stages, as a pilgrimage.

Her surface is a threshold between visible and invisible worlds. Above: the great dome of sky,

waves, wind, low-slung shoreline. Below in the brackish gradient from the Ocean: menhaden,

crabs, oyster reefs, eels, skates, terrapin, mud. Above: cormorant, eagle, osprey, goose, great

blue heron, ibis, pelican. Below: drowning, dredging, a riverbed gouged out by an asteroid, red

algae, fossilized sharks’ teeth. Above: clouds, sunsets, gales, heat, dead calm, bluster, ice,

moonrise, meteor showers. Below: eelgrass, shipwrecks, molting crabs, and sunken islands that

once supported towns bustling with confectioners, baseball teams, Methodist churches and

cemeteries.

Last summer, I had the helm of our old 34-foot Bristol as we glided slowly under a perfect blue

sky, heading southwest on a broad reach out of Eastern Bay. We’d spent a quiet night anchored

in Tilghman Creek off the Miles River, tuning ourselves to sunset, stars and sunrise. Poplar

Island stretched along the horizon to the left and the wide-open Bay beckoned straight ahead.

The breeze was light enough that I could divide my attention between steering and daydreaming

over names on the nautical chart. The two-word epics read like Haiku: Hollicutts Noose, Wild

Grounds, The Hole, Airplane Wreck. Gum Thickets. Brownies Hill. Bloody Point. What events

had named those places? What ghosts lingered there? A waterman might board his skipjack

and head out to Bugby Bar or Choptank Lumps or Devils Hole to tong for oysters early on a cold

November day. The only data he needs to set course is the feel of the breeze on his nose and

cheeks and the position of the sun emerging low on the horizon.

! ! $!

Page 153 of 218