For Virginia Oliver, age 101
The boat may fiddle and drift a bit nowadays
as it carves into the silver lines of the marsh.
Fishing for 93 years has leathered her hands, but she’s
undaunted by the skirmish of wire traps and sodden ropes,
still loves the hush of reeds in the breeze,
tells time by the clink of the ship’s bell.
I stare at the unweeded garden
and think about all I have not kept doing.
What I walked away from as a child because
I couldn’t stand being bad at things.
I want to toddle back there and
peek over the kitchen counter,
eyes ablaze with excitement
and a willingness to fail.
There must have been lobsters that fell out,
slipped her grip and plunged back into the sea.
Maybe she didn’t mind. She could come back tomorrow.
As the years went on, the weight of what she did do
mounting and clattering in the dusk.
The oldest lobster fisher in the world says she might as well keep doing it
Emilie Lygren is a nonbinary poet and outdoor educator whose work emerges from the intersections between scientific observation and poetic wonder. Her first book of poetry, What We Were Born For, was chosen by the Young People’s Poet Laureate as the February 2022 Book Pick for the Poetry Foundation. She lives in California, where she wonders about oaks and teaches poetry in local classrooms. Find more of her work and words at emilielygren.com.