Myth Happens

Late this afternoon, I sat on the wooden shoring of Derby Wharf in Salem, near where a replica of the Kalmar Nyckel was tied up; the sky was the overexposed blue of summer that swims with sun and a daymoon hung up in the masts, like a stamp. I watched seagulls and tourists and the burls of reflection forming and breaking on the water, oils of light, bird's-eyes. On the next pier over, a man with his back to me was playing a cornet, but I never made out the tune; I could hear him only when the wind shifted. It was the end of the Salem Maritime Festival, which I hadn't known when I got there. (I went to see the Dutch seascapes at the Peabody Essex Museum. I came home with a book of maritime photographs. The rest of their collections will require hours in the near future.) I didn't go to the contra-dances or aboard the small tall ship, though I walked past someone who had a beautiful face for his turn-of-the-nineteenth-century collar and hat. Even if it was the harbor, I could breathe in salt. This was better than counters and cabinets.