Although it is a cold evening, | down by one of the fishhouses | an old man sits netting, | his net, in the gloaming almost invisible, | a dark purple-brown, | and his shuttle worn and polished. | The air smells so strong of codfish | it makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water. | The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs | and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up | to storerooms in the gables | for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on. | All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea, | swelling slowly as if considering spilling over, | is opaque, but the silver of the benches, | the lobster pots, and masts, scattered | among the wild jagged rocks, | is of an apparent translucence | like the small old buildings with an emerald moss | growing on their shoreward walls. | The big fish tubs are completely lined | with layers of beautiful herring scales | and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered | with creamy iridescent coats of mail, | with small iridescent flies crawling on them. | Up on the little slope behind the houses, | set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass, | is an ancient wooden capstan, | cracked, with two long bleached handles | and some melancholy stains, like dried blood, | where the ironwork has rusted. | The old man accepts a Lucky Strike. | He was a friend of my grandfather. | We talk of the decline in the population | and of codfish and herring | while he waits for a herring boat to come in. | There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb. | He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty, | from unnumbered fish with that black old knife, | the blade of which is almost worn away. |  | Down at the water’s edge, at the place | where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp | descending into the water, thin silver | tree trunks are laid horizontally | across the gray stones, down and down | at intervals of four or five feet. |  | Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, | element bearable to no mortal, | to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly | I have seen here evening after evening. | He was curious about me. He was interested in music; | like me a believer in total immersion, | so I used to sing him Baptist hymns. | I also sang “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” | He stood up in the water and regarded me | steadily, moving his head a little. | Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge | almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug | as if it were against his better judgment. | Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, | the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us, | the dignified tall firs begin. | Bluish, associating with their shadows, | a million Christmas trees stand | waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended | above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones. | I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same, | slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones, | icily free above the stones, | above the stones and then the world. | If you should dip your hand in, | your wrist would ache immediately, | your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn | as if the water were a transmutation of fire | that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame. | If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter, | then briny, then surely burn your tongue. | It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: | dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free, | drawn from the cold hard mouth | of the world, derived from the rocky breasts | forever, flowing and drawn, and since | our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.