Bells at the Harbour
I park at the quay in March, before the ships have broken through the ice: a bell rings rhythmically in gusts of wind speeding off of the flat ocean, while workers on the gravel harbour build lobster traps, smoking cigarettes, tearing off pieces of Wonderbread sandwiches in their grizzly open mouths, hammers in hand—slower now the bell, now faster—wind rocking the suspension of my black minivan, the only vehicle at the docks this blinding afternoon; airborne salt crystals tear through the cabin while I light up in solidarity, the working class of intelligentsia, poor in cash but rich in time, and also rich in cash, abstractly (if only one knows how to use it)—not I, entirely—and inhale the smoke of a nameless cigarette, bell ringing.
A thought: now would be a convenient time for a revelation, but the words comprising the idea remain silent, their shapely profiles buried, barely visible under dark volcanic sand—the mud flat with iridescent puddles of motor oil, the small shacks and shanties and heaps dotting the high fields of the distant cape expanding parabolically outwards to infinity (from my perspective), supervising the sprawling and thawing whitecaps. I don a pair of stolen sunglasses from a neighbourhood three times removed, as now two dogs—white with rich clay brown and shiny black spots—survey fishbones and algae-tufted rocks sugar-dusted with pulverized clamshells. Paws and noses blood-red from the bitter, glassy snow; they traverse up and down the shore, blissfully uninvolved with all matters of class and race, wordlessly enlightened buddhas (leafless shrubs and wind-burnt grasses echo the sentiment in a sing-song chorus)—the creaking death of another winter, the promise of incessant change, the punishment and joy of living, the imprisonment of nature (anthropomorphic and dehumanized).
Hammers clop against tired wood; a drill kisses a panel of corrugated sheet metal as both parties squeal equally in embarrassing delight—literally making love, drills and sheet metal—and the unseen bell, still ringing.