Quaker Roots, and: Nantucket

Quaker Roots

Linked to them by ancestry,I am lured alike to the sea,its blue-black mystery, hidingthe bones of drowned sailorsand the captains who drove them,lost souls all, bound to their task,bloody, awful, relentless,in pursuit of the whale.

So many were Quakers,generations of Seekers,indwellers of Light on landwho sought the ends of the earthfor the biblical Leviathan,pillars committed to servicewho sacrificed self and all handsto supply light for the world.

They carried their silence,habits of self-containment,quiet, unshared thinking,from worship seaward,through years of swells,waves lapping, thrashingin tight-quartered ships,even smaller whaleboats;

a mindset of immersion,intent, determined striving,like onetime defianceof jail or death, now poisedagainst Nature’s great “IS,”a whale apt and armedat retribution, flukes crashing,every moment perilous.

Lovers of peace on land,their ban against killingreleased against creatures;stalwart, stiff-necked denialis how Bildad describestheir will to slaughter:“a man’s religion is one thing,this practical world. . . . another.”

Writers like Melville and Lowellquestioned this savagery,capacity for convincement,hubris turned madness,like Ahab’s deathly pursuit ofthe monster who maimed him,provoking in both self and Otherunspeakable brutality.

How it damaged survivors,only they knew. Quiet before,more reclusive thereafter,Objectors returning from warnow haunted by horrorrelived in recollection;those lost in the carnage carriedtheir dark secret with them.

Yet, I share in it feelingly,akin to both hunter and hunted,as much to whale as pursuer,sensing the piercing harpoon,the choking of blood-filled lungs,the last spout in extremis;those with the blood of those sailorsinherit a lay of their blood guilt.

Nantucket

Ishmael’s transport gone:the packet schooner Mosa high-speed ferry now.

Still, I search this island’sdeep, ship-loving harborfor rows of three-masts,weathered whalers,unloading or leavingthis “elbow of sand”;

dark, oil-stained wharvesthick with odors, traffic:rolling wheelbarrows, casks,carpenters, coopers, shipwrightsbanging and shouting,fires and forges roaring,hauling, overhauling,emptying, provisioning;

and stern-faced sailors,Nantucket natives,Quaker captains, matesin black stovepipe and coat,Cape or Vineyard men,hands from ports remote,browned and brawny,shouldering carpetbags;even savage Queequeg,toting barbs and lance,beside a hopeful rookie.

But these I only imaginein the immaculate ringof too-small pleasure boatsand low Cape buildings,rippled brick sidewalks,

cobblestoned streets,charming shops, and b&b’s;only the whaling museumholds what I look for:remains of those daring menand magnificent shipswho left for the endsof the world from here.