Poem about cod and herring fishing, sardine canning in Downeast Maine

Lawson, Valerie

English

University of Maine

The Catch Volume 1 Article 2 2013 Hope Valerie Lawson Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/the_catch  Part of the Aquaculture and Fisheries Commons, History Commons, and the Poetry Commons Recommended Citation Lawson, Valerie (2013) "Hope," The Catch: Vol. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/the_catch/vol1/iss1/2 This Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Catch by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact um.library.technical.services@maine.edu. Hope  Fish run in our veins, but they’re slipping from our hands.  Was a time we couldn’t drop a hook without pulling up cod,  and sardines came in by the boatload. We learned to take more  and the fish learned to be eaten. Thousands of flashing silver bodies,  schooling, turning with one mind into our nets, then cascading  into the belly of the ship where they shuddered  as shovelsful of salt hit them, suffocated  under the crushing weight of their brethren.  Was a time you could walk the length of Water Street,  dock to dock and never step on land. The fish ran and the factories with them, night and day—we thought  it would go on forever. There’s only dogfish and urchins left.  They’re harvesting the sea weed itself and harnessing the tides. My son moved to Millinocket to find work in the mills.  Our family don’t go inland. When my granddaughter was born,  I named this boat for her. She’s got the sea in her veins,  went off to school, but spent summers here with me.  She’s got her sights set on an old Gaff schooner,  to start up a whale watch business. She knows them by name, as if properly introduced. Instead of thar she blows,  it’s ooh’s and ahh’s, a round of applause, snapping cameras  instead of nets and harpoons.   1Lawson: HopePublished by DigitalCommons@UMaine, 2013

Hope

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&amp;context=the_catch

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