North of Time by Rachel Lyman Field

We sat together in the small, square room, <br />Late sunshine fell across the kitchen floor <br />In yellow patches. I could hear the boom <br />Of turning tide along the island shore. <br />'Why, yes,' the old man shifted in his chair, <br />'That's Grandfather's own chart hung by the door, <br />And that's his compass on the shelf up there. <br />He knew the world and foreign parts before <br />Most Island boys had learned their A.B.C.'s, <br />And how to cipher. He stood six feet two,-- <br />It's queer to think a man like that should freeze <br />Sealing, up north in Greenland, but it's true, <br />And him not forty. Here I'm eighty odd <br />And not been south of Boston. Guess he'd say <br />Folks nowadays are like as peas in a pod, <br />And one port same's another all the way <br />Eastport to Hong Kong. He'd be right at that.' <br />The kettle rocked with steam. The clock ticks told <br />The minutes off between us as we sat. <br />His eyes were age-filmed and his hands so old <br />They might have been dead roots. Dead roots? I thought <br />It can't be long before he's bound to go <br />After his Grandfather, to that same port <br />That's north of time, too far for charts to show <br />How currents run; what hidden reefs are near; <br />What headlands jut; what harbors to explore; <br />Or such a brass-bound compass serve to steer <br />The cruising souls along an unknown shore.<br /><br />Rachel Lyman Field<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/north-of-time/